In these parts, many a local has called this terrain the wee beastie, for its mere 123 yards can make one’s skin crawl.
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“I didn’t get into golf to try and grow the game”, he said. McIlroy tripled the par with a 9, and if that happened in the tournament he would have doomed himself in a matter of 10 minutes.
NBC is covering its first major since losing the U.S. Open to Fox and the Golf Channel is airing its first major ever.
Johnson says if the games were in Tokyo this year, he would have played. He was told the opening three holes are par 4s that measure under 400 yards, and that seemed to intrigue him. Not the three-putt from 12 feet that cost him a shot at the U.S. Open title past year.
Four years later, back at Augusta National, he carded a remarkable hole in one at the famous par-three 16th during his final round at the 2016 Masters.
Montgomerie’s approach to the gentle opening hole plugged into a pot bunker short of the green.
Coming off victories in the U.S. Open and a World Golf Championship, Johnson has moved past Jordan Spieth to No. 2 in the world, still trailing by a decent margin Jason Day at No. 1.
Colin Montgomerie had to skip breakfast but was all smiles after launching the 145th Open Championship at his home course of Royal Troon.
“Honestly, I don’t care”, he said. In the hearts and minds of golfers the world over, it is the Postage Stamp hole, so deemed by William Park Jr., the British Open champion in 1887 and 1889, who while working for Golf Illustrated wrote of the green having “a pitching surface skimmed down to the size of a Postage Stamp”.
“Then I hit it into a bunker, probably the deepest bunker on the course”.
European Ryder Cup captain Darren Clarke will also have been encouraged by a level-par 71 but there was less cheer for both Shane Lowry and Paul Dunne. He got to 5 under before a double-bogey 6 on the 15th dropped him to 3 under.
Mickelson said: “I feel like I played the one of the best rounds in my life but I feel like crying”.
The back nine was once described by Gary Player as, “the most hard in the world when the wind is blowing”.
Spieth arrived on the weekend and already saw the unpredictable nature of these Ayrshire links off the Irish Sea. He produced two decent putts to “save” bogey, but had tumbled down the leaderboard after sacrificing three shots in two holes.
Other players found the going rather tougher, with 2001 Open champion David Duval of the United States shooting an 11-over-par round of 82.
Montgomerie, widely considered the best player to have never won a major, qualified at age 53 for what likely will be his last Open, and certainly his last at Royal Troon.
Adam Scott, desperate to get his hands on the elusive Claret Jug after four painful near misses in the past four years, tees off just before midnight (AEST).
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McIlroy, who won at Hoylake in 2014 but didn’t play in last year’s Open because of an ankle injury he sustained playing soccer with his buddies, got off to a solid start with a 69.
