It may have been 12 years since Daniel Gaunt played a competitive round at Victoria Golf Club, but the surprise joint overnight leader believes local knowledge played a significant role in his strong start to the JBWere Masters on Thursday.
Gaunt, a member of the club who has spent the past decade living in the UK, avoided much of the hype surrounding world No.2 Tiger Woods, playing excellent golf in the warm afternoon sunshine to finish with a 65 and join fellow Aussies Alistair Presnell and Adam Bland in the first round lead.
Having learned his craft on the Melbourne sandbelt course, much like 2006 US Open winner Geoff Ogilvy, Gaunt was confident he could put that experience to good use despite not playing at Victoria for such a long time.
"It's great to be back at my home golf course. It's changed a little bit but it's amazing how quick things come back to you and I class it as one of the best golf courses in the world and it lived up to that today," he said.
"There's a few holes which used to be a bit tighter and I think what they've done is remarkable and that makes the course much, much better and even better than what it was."
"I played the course similar to the way I used to play it. The wind conditions out there changed quite quickly and if you are used to that and playing all the time, it makes it a lot easier."
It was not just a rare trip to Victoria Golf Club for Gaunt, but also to Australia as a whole. The 31-year-old may have grown up just north of Melbourne but London has been home for the past ten years.
"I had my card (in Australia) when I was 20 and I lost it and I basically went to the UK and I've been there for ten years," he said. "I haven't done well in the past over here but hopefully I can get that burden off my back this week.
He says you could count the number of tournaments he has played in Australia in the past decade on one hand. Instead he has been trying to launch a career in Europe via the EuroPro Tour.
While he had a few victories, that journey has seen him experience his fair share of frustrations and after working in a golf shop to make ends meet, he was ready to give the game away less than 18 months ago.
But after qualifying for the 2009 British Open and then making the cut, he recorded a significant success a few months ago, winning the English Challenge on the secondary European Tour and then claiming his full-time European Tour card for finishing top ten on the challenge tour money list.
"I gave myself a two-year plan at the start of the year to play in the EuroPro and the plan was to finish top five on that and get onto the Challenge Tour for next year, but luckily I got an invite onto the Challenge Tour and won, so it's snowballed along and got full status for next year on the European Tour," he said.
But despite the distance his career has come over the past couple of years, Gaunt will not be content to just be a Thursday Masters memory. The strength