Shane Lowry put himself in perfect position to challenge for the Masters as the big-game hunters gathered at the top of the leaderboard at Augusta National.

There are six Major winners in the top 10 (and 15 in the top 25) but Rory McIlroy will have to match Tiger Woods, who is the only player to come from outside the top 10 after the opening round to win over the past 18 years, if he’s to don that green jacket on Sunday.

Woods did it twice, winning from 33rd after an opening 74 in 2005 and from 11th after a 70 in 2019.

But McIlroy’s bogey-par finish for a level par 72 leaves him with a mountain to climb as he shares 37th place after the opening day.

Lowry’s 68 left him tied for sixth, just three shots behind Viktor Hovland, Jon Rahm and a resurgent, four-time Major winner Brooks Koepka, whose seven-under 65s gave them a two-shot lead over last year’s Open Championship runner up Cameron Young and former PGA champion Jason Day.

On a day of low scoring in humid but largely windless conditions, Lowry's round was just the tonic he needed, even if he was drawing only on the positives from his up and down start to the season.

With last year’s Open Championship runner-up Cameron Young just two shots back after a 67 and Xander Schauffele, Adam Scott, Gary Woodland, amateur Sam Bennett and Sam Burns tied with Lowry on four-under, the Clara man did what he had to do to take the stress out of today’s second round.

“I think it was important to shoot a good score today,” Lowry said. “I was trying not to put too much pressure on myself to do so, but I knew going into today how important today's round is because who knows what the next three days are going to hold.”

With one good score in the bank, he’s got an ace up his sleeve in the event of bad weather and plans to approach today as if his 68 never happened.

“I think I'm comfortable in my own skin and the way I'm playing and that you just have to keep going, just keep one foot in front of the other and keep going forward,” he said.

“There's nothing that happened behind you that you can change. So whether I shot 68 or 78 today I still have to go and shoot a good score tomorrow.  

“It's one of those where I put that round behind me and put everything behind me and just move on and hopefully I can do it again tomorrow.”

McIlroy left himself more work than he wanted after yet another difficult start.

He had to scramble for par at the first, then followed a birdie at the second with a bogey at the third, where he hit his drive pin high left of the green but failed to make the green with his second.

His hand was off the club at the par-three fourth but he managed to chip close for par, then struggled to two-putt for par at the fifth before following a par at the sixth with a double-bogey at the seventh.

Left in the trees, he went through the green in two, flubbed his pitch into the bunker in front of him and then lipped out from x feet for par.

He would two-putt for birdie at the eighth, then joing CBS for a live on-air chat at the ninth, where he would hit an average wedge and two-putt for par and a one-over par opening nine.

A birdie from 10 feet at the 10th got him back for par but he three-putted the 11th for bogey after catching a branch with a daring second from the right side that came up just short of the pond.

A double-crossed approach to the 13th, followed by a heavy bunker shot saw him forced to settle for par there.

He got back on track with birdies at the 15th and 16th only to bogey the 17th after a drive into the left trees and a bunkered approach.

A bunkered drive at the 18th saw him come up short of the green in two but he would miss his seven footer for par and sign for his fifth successive over-par opening round - a 73 that leaves him 10 over for first round in his last five starts.

Rahm shot the lowest opening round by a Masters competitor after an opening double bogey, where he four-putted from 40 feet.

“If you're going to make a double or four-putt or anything, it might as well be the first hole, 71 holes to make it up,” the Spaniard said. “After that, it was more, I was focused on the fact that all the strokes were good. The reads were good. The roll was good. Obviously the speed was off on the first two putts, so once I kind of accepted that there was nothing really to look into, I just got to work and I had 17 holes to make up.

“I've always said and I've always told (my caddie) Adam and I tell people who ask me about the Masters, if you can somehow make it through the first 6 1/2 holes, and what I mean is putting the ball in the fairway on 7 and you're around even par, I think it's a pretty good start.  “It's easy to make bogeys. It's not easy to make birdies.

“So if you can get through that, you have a short iron into 7, 8, 9 to maybe make some birdies and maybe get the round going. I was able to do that and took advantage of it the rest of the day.”

Hovland followed an eagle at the second with five birdies to set the early pace and put McIlroy’s task in perspective.

“So if you start with a really low round and it gets very difficult, it's kind of easier to protect the score a little bit compared to if you're five, six, seven shots back, it's really difficult to make up that much ground if this place is playing very difficult,” the Norwegian said. “So obviously getting off to a nice start is key this week.”