Far from discouraged, Jason Day said he cherished having the best seat in the house for Adam Scott’s remarkable opening to the Australian Open.

The Scott-Day pairing was billed as an enthralling head-to-head showdown but the Masters champion blew his good mate away with a flawless, course-record round of 62 at Royal Sydney.

He opened with six straight birdies and left Day, who finished with a respectable two-under 70, in his wake.

Day, though, said the experience wasn’t too tough at all.

“You’re just watching the show really,” he said.

“That’s how the best players in the world play and I got to witness it today and it was special.

“That’s something that I’m going to remember for a long time. I look forward to playing with him tomorrow and hopefully catching him.”

While Scott sizzled, Day opened with a three-putt bogey and dropped another shot on his second hole when he sprayed one onto a driving range.

But the three-time major runner-up impressed speculators in a slightly different way to Scott when he scaled the two-metre high fence and coolly hit his recovery shot before collecting back-to-back birdies to get his round going.

“Yeah, I had to jump,” he said.

“I had to run 100 metres or so to get around it, so I just jumped the fence and hit my shot over and then jumped back over. I’m glad I didn’t hurt myself.”

Day will play with Scott again on Friday afternoon and was heartened that a birdie at the last on Thursday kept him just eight shots back.

“It’s going to blow pretty hard tomorrow,” he said.

“And I think there’s going to be a little bit of rain, so the conditions from what they’re forecasting is going to be difficult but I got good momentum from that birdie.”