Marcus Fraser might have finished an impressive second in the Australian Masters but the late V8 Supercar driver Jason Richards was on his mind as much as his golf.
Richards played in the Masters pro-am on Wednesday and died the following night following a battle with cancer, aged 35.
He was a close friend of both Fraser and Victorian golf star and motor sport enthusiast Richard Green, with whom he played last week.
Fraser defied wild winds and a heavy heart to shoot a seven-under-par 64, continuing the fine form he has shown over the past two months.
But he could not shake the thought of losing Richards.
"I lost one of my best mates this week so it was pretty gut-wrenching," Fraser said.
"If everyone in this world was like Jase Richards, we'd have a pretty wonderful place.
"I just can't work it out how someone like that could be taken away from us, but that's life I suppose and I've just got to try and be there for (Richards' wife) Charlotte and (children) Olivia and Sienna."
Fraser said the New Zealand-born race driver was a keen golfer who played as much as he could and "everything he did, he did it as hard and fast as he could."
"He was probably one of if not the best V8 Supercar drivers going around. When I heard the news on Friday I just felt sick."
Fraser will now take a short break before returning to the European Tour.
He produced a brilliant round under the conditions, dotted with eight birdies and marred by just one bogey.
""It was brutal out there towards the end," he said.
"I think we got lucky the first four or five holes, we didn't have a lot of breeze and then it just slowly kicked up throughout the day.
"I think towards the end it was all about playing a lot of knock-down shots and where you are trying to pitch the ball and judging how far it is going to roll," Fraser said.
NZN