Ryan McCarthy was the surprise top performer among the Australians at the European Tour’s Lyoness Open in Austria, the Tasmanian grabbing a top-25 result at the Diamond Country Club.

McCarthy, a native of Tasmania who is playing the secondary Challenge Tour in 2017, made the most of his opportunity to step up to the main European Tour with some of his best golf of the year.

He had made only two of six cuts on the secondary circuit in the lead up to this week but rounds of 69-74-71-71 will give him plenty of encouragement for the rest of 2017.

McCarthy, who played the PGA Tour’s Latino America circuit before making the move to Europe this year, also picked up his second biggest cheque of the season after a good showing at the ISPS HANDA World Super 6 Perth.

New Zealand’s Ryan Fox finished alongside McCarthy at 3-under for the week and T23, another encouraging performance after a recent mini slump.

Fox’s T21 at last week’s Nordea Masters broke a run of three consecutive missed cuts and scores of 71-70-71-73 suggest his game is rounding back into shape.

One of the longest hitters in world golf Fox also claimed the longest drive of the week, an impressive hit of 320 metres, though his driving accuracy needs work as he found less than half the fairways for the week.

Brett Rumford was the last of the Australasians to play the weekend but had a week where nothing seemed to happen for him.

It was a case of two steps forward and one step back as he notched rounds of 71-75-72-74 to finish 4-over for the tournament and T57.

Richard Green, who won this tournament a decade ago though at a different course, didn’t have his best game for the week and missed the cut.