By Matt Smith
Kiwi superstar Ryan Fox continued his sensational season by carding eight birdies in a stunning opening-round 64 to storm into the lead at the Horizon Irish Open, an event at which the New Zealander  came within a whisker of winning four years ago.

Thousands of fans descended on the County Kilkenny venue as full-capacity crowds returned to the historic national open for the first time since 2019 and, while home heroes Padraig Harrington, Shane Lowry and Seamus Power were the star attractions as the event teed off, Ras Al Khaimah champion Fox soon took centre stage.

The 35-year-old had come agonisingly close to winning this event in 2018, missing out in a play-off to Russell Knox who holed a monster putt to win, and he put himself in the driving seat after the opening round at Mount Juliet with a bogey-free eight-under round.

That left him a shot clear of Frenchman Frederic Lacroix, Jorge Campillo of Spain, Paraguayan Fabrizio Zanotti and Marcel Schneider of Germany.

World No. 36 Power and Niall Kearney were the leading Irishmen after round one, both carding four-under rounds while Harrington and Lowry will enter day two on two-under and one-under respectively.

“I’m more surprised, to be honest, than anything else,” said Fox. “I’ve been fighting it on the range the last couple days after the weekend, and certainly didn’t look like it early in the round. I made a couple of birdies, but I was scrapping away, and then stop and collect on seven, eight, hit a great wedge shot in there and made a few putts as well.

“So just one of those days that I guess it shows how important patience is in a round of golf, and from first six holes I felt like two-under would have been a great score. And then the last 10 holes, I felt like I could have shot anything, to be honest.

“It’s just one of those silly little golf feelings, what feels right and, you know, I saw a couple shots. So it was stopping and finishing where I wanted the ball to go. And I always feel like in golf you’re probably two swings away from playing really well and two swings away from playing really badly. So I think we’re out in the two swings away from playing really well today.”