Some terrific scrambling, notably a monster 30ft putt on the 13th, prevented a stumble becoming a nosedive and, given the treacherous nature of the back nine, Montgomerie was more than satisfied with his level-par round of 71.
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“At 5am hopefully you’re not hungry”, he said, before explaining things were different by the time he hit the fairways and the aroma of bacon being cooked at nearby food stalls was nearly too tempting. You want to stop – I did in practice rounds – but I had to keep going. “You can’t beat it”.
The world number four had taken “eight or nine” at the famous Postage Stamp in practice after struggling to get out of a greenside bunker, but had no such problems when it mattered thanks to a superb tee shot to just two feet from the hole. He also made the first double bogey. It was unbelievable how that ball came out.
Favourable conditions greeted the field for the first round of The Open, but Colin Montgomerie warned of a tougher test ahead. And the second one fell into a footprint, and my footprint is deeper than most, so that was no good.
The flags were barely flickering on the back of the grandstand at the 18th when Colin Montgomerie appeared at the rear of the clubhouse, exchanged a cheery good morning with a club member and joined his caddie on the practice green to hit a few putts. “I played particularly badly”, he said.
The 23-year-old made a cracking start to his debut in golf’s oldest major championship, roaring to four-under with birdies at each of the opening four holes.
Thomas turned in a five-under-par 31 but pulled his approach to the 10th into thick rough and came out with a bogey, managing to escape with par at the next after holing a bunker shot.
“To be two over there and a lot better players, top 10 in the world, would have taken 71 there after that”.
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“I’m very proud of myself for hanging on because it was easy to score 78 there”. A great honour. It was a great honour for all three of us. From there on he was on his own but, for all that he admitted to having felt considerable nervousness and having to dig into memories of playing opening ties in Ryder Cup matches to steady himself, Monty wasted no time getting into character.
