The only way out was a nine-hour drive to the nearest neighbouring community, even then requiring a four-wheel drive with a snorkel for two river crossings.

So he adapted. After riding his bike past the local golf course each day he asked for a set of golf clubs for his seventh birthday.

His parents, who lived in the remote Northern Territory mining town of Gove, obliged and a six-hole backyard "course" was manufactured with empty baked beans cans doubling as holes.

"[There was] probably a seven-year stretch I didn't leave that town," Quayle said.

"There is no McDonald's, there is no cinema. Our only fast-food restaurant was Peninsula Pizza and it was about $40 for a pizza. This is going back nine or 10 years ago. Fuel was over $2 a litre. There was one service station in town so they could charge whatever they like.

"So [it was] very remote. [But] it was a good place to grow up. I used to use the rain funnels as one of the holes [at home]. My parents never pushed me. It was always my own motivation and passion to do it, which is good."

Quayle still holds the course record of three-under at the modest nine-hole Gove layout, where he used to tend to the greens as a volunteer on Saturday mornings and play competition in the afternoon.

It was closed for four months each year when the wet season hit, a far cry from the perfectly manicured lawns of the Australian Golf Club.

"I didn't know places this good existed," Quayle joked.

When his parents did eventually send him away for golf, it was on one proviso: he get an education.

Quayle travelled to boarding school at Hills International College in Queensland, the same alma mater as former world No.1 Jason Day.

If not for a last hole slip-up, Quayle (-4) would have finished the Australian Open first round on the same score as his school's most famous export Day (-5).

The prospect of being paired with Day and his mass following later in the tournament was put to Quayle, and the 23-year-old had a novel response to having thousands of eyes on him.

"We used to go camping most weekends," Quayle said. "You would shine the flashlight out onto the beach and you would see all the red eyes [of crocodiles] looking back. [Crowds] looking at me is not too bad."

He's also looked at a few trophies Day has won, too.

The pair have never met and still might not by the end of the week as they both chase their first Stonehaven Cup, but wouldn't it be some story if Quayle's name is called to the tee after Day's on either Saturday or Sunday.

"It would be fun," Quayle said. "I would probably have to try to not be too annoying - I would probably want to ask him too many questions.

"When I went to boarding school and started hearing about Jason - I always wanted to be a professional golfer - but that's when I started to see what I had to do to get there. When I was seven I was telling everyone I would be a professional golfer one day."