Curtis Luck ground hard, but in the end the final half-hour took a heavy toll on his windswept Masters debut.
The young West Australian, in his last week as an amateur, signed for a 78 after battling gusting westerly winds that he hadn’t experienced in his limited time studying the course.
Luck, 20, bogeyed the first hole, but hung tough until Amen Corner when he leaked a couple of shots and fell to four over after 12.
But a rifled long approach to the par-five 13th seemed to inspire the Cottesloe Golf Club ace and his two-putt birdie seemed to settle his nerves.
A great par save on 14 was followed by a near miss for birdie on the 15th and when he stood on the 16th tee, he was just one behind US mid-amateur champ Stewart Hagestad in the race to be low amateur.
But a three-putt from the wrong tier of the famous par-three kick-started a run of three closing bogeys as he fell four back and into a tie for 75th, albeit just two shots from the nominal cut line.
Luck described the conditions for his long-awaited major championship debut as “pretty brutal”.
“It’s seriously windy and it just never let up, unfortunately,” he told Fox Sports.
“Hopefully tomorrow morning we’ll be able to get out there and make the most of slightly better conditions.
“But it was good fun, lots of crowd and still exciting, so I enjoyed it. You can hear the roars everywhere … it’s insane.
“I’ve been here for a week and haven’t come across these sorts of conditions in the slightest, so it’s a completely new golf course today for me.
“The 18th (for example) tee shot, with the howling wind off the left, you’ve almost got to hit a hook against the breeze and that ain’t my shot.
“But it’s good to play it like this and see how tough it can be. Hopefully we get better conditions tomorrow.
"I felt pretty comfortable out there, wasn’t too nervous. I was nervous on the first tee, but that’s a good thing.
“I just didn’t hit it good enough , it’s as simple as that. It just wasn’t my day with the clubs.”
Hagestad finished at two over and is the only amateur inside the projected cut mark after round one.
But Luck’s 76 was only three worse than the average score on a treacherous day and the equal of some seasoned pros including Jim Furyk and Martin Kaymer, and better than perennial contender Angel Cabrera (79) and world No.15 Tyrrell Hatton (80).