Seventeen-year-old pro debutant Ryan Ruffels had plenty of reasons to fail in his opening round but he defied them all to lead the Australian charge at the US PGA Tour's Farmers Insurance Open.
Inexperience, nerves, pressure, age, and a pre-tournament spray from five-time major winner and local hero Phil Mickelson aside, Ruffels fired a two-under-70 on the north course at Torrey Pines to sit just four shots off the lead.
Ruffels was stoic despite dealing with Mickelson's accusation of embellishment and 'high school stuff' when revealing a recent wager between the pair during a practice round.
"It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be," said Ruffels.
"I didn't sleep much last night. I was pretty nervous and anticipating that first tee shot for a bit.
"I practiced that on the range for a while. But I got up there and hit a beauty down the first - a tight little tee shot, hit a nice fade down there, which was good.
"Hit a fairway and a green to start off. Which settled the nerves a bit and I was able to get into the round from there."
World No.2 Jason Day could only muster an even-par-72 to begin his title defence while clearly still struggling with a virus.
"I'm wiped out, that was a battle, and I just need to get home and rest and hopefully do better tomorrow," Day said before heading for more treatment.
Americans Scott Brown (south course) and Andrew Loupe (north) shared the lead at six-under-66 with Billy Horschel, Patton Kizzire, Tom Hoge, Rob Oppenheim and Harold Varner III all at five-under.
Ruffels moves to the tougher south course in round two but welcomed the challenge of playing the course where he won a world junior title two years ago.
"That's probably the worst score I could have shot, which is actually kind of motivating for me because if I keep doing that and sinking a few putts it's going to be quite good from here," he said.
"I'm not intimidated by the south course. If I keep playing like that, nothing's going to stop me from shooting low numbers tomorrow."
Day looked as if he might defy the virus that had him in hospital twice on Tuesday and left him without any practice in the lead up when he was three-under through six holes.
But his energy levels tanked soon after and two bogeys in his final three holes spoiled what could have still been a decent start.
"He said he felt not bad but he had a lot of nasal congestion, his ears were blocked, and he said mainly physically he just had no energy," caddy and coach Col Swatton said.
Swatton confirmed Day contemplated pulling out of the tournament but his competitive nature decided otherwise.
"He wants to compete, he wants to play and he is defending champion and no one wants to pull out of any event let alone one that you are defending," Swatton added.
"He practiced really hard last week, had some great sessions, was flushing the ball, said it's the best he's hit it for a long time so it is just disappointing to not be able to come here and use all that hard work and sort of have to settle in battling it around for even par."
Australian Open champion Matt Jones, Rod Pampling and Rhein Gibson all fired 71s on the north course while Geoff Ogilvy put up his 71 on the south to be the only other Australians under par.
Cameron Percy joined Day at even while Aaron Baddeley, Jarrod Lyle and John Senden were all one over on the south.
Marc Leishman (+2), Robert Allenby (+4) and Cameron Smith (+4) struggled while Mickelson shot 69 on the south course.
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