Shane Lowry 'in a good frame of mind' after impressive opening round at Augusta

Shane Lowry came out smiling after trading blows with an Augusta National course playing as tough as he can remember in the first round of the 90th Masters.

The Offaly man signed for a two-under 70 at the start of his 11th appearance in the Green Jacket event - but the bare score didn’t tell the story of one of the most dramatic rounds of the day.

Lowry started birdie-birdie before four-putting the par-3 fourth from less than 25 feet to run up a double-bogey 5.

He then found himself over par after dropping a shot at the sixth, another short hole, before moving in the right direction again with birdies at the eighth and ninth.

Things then got even better for the Ryder Cup star when he holed out from the fairway with a wedge for an eagle-3 at the 13th, though he gave one of those shots back by taking a 5 at the 17th.

“Yeah, it was pretty good. I'm pretty happy,” admitted Lowry. “Obviously I got off to a great start, and I was feeling great. Then obviously I had a mishap on the fourth, and I thought I did a great job of kicking on from there.

“I know I bogeyed six, but I made a great par save on seven and birdied eight and nine. That kind of really got me going, and I really felt like I plotted my way around the course nicely today.”

It was put to Lowry that patience is the key on a course where players have to roll with the punches.

“Look, I spoke to this with Neil [Manchip, his coach] and Darren [Reynolds, his caddie] over the last few days,” he admitted.

“You know, you can hit good shots around here and make bogeys, and you just have to roll with it. I felt like I didn't miss a shot in the first four holes, and obviously I had that mishap on the fourth green.

“You can get a bit disheartened or dejected by that, but I felt like I'm in a good frame of mind to kind of just move on and move on from everything.

“Yeah, I've been around here enough to know that that could happen at certain stages. Obviously it's not ideal if it happens, but yeah.”

Lowry was speaking after close friend and Ryder Cup team-mate Rory McIlroy had launched his bid to become the first player to win back-to-back here in more than 20 years had opened with a 67 to share the lead with American Sam Burns.

“It’s great to see him up there,” said Lowry of the world No 2 and five-time major winner before predicting: “Yeah, he will probably kick on and win four in a row or something.”