Key events:
Cameron Tringale, the first-round leader in last week’s Scottish Open (he went on to finish sixth), has made another bright start. Birdies at 1 and 3 have taken the Californian to -2 and a shot back from Simpson.
Tringale has yet to win on the PGA Tour so this would seem an unlikely place to grab that elusive first victory. He was tied 26th in last year’s Open at Royal St George’s and tied 14th in last month’s US Open (his best major finish) so perhaps the 34-year-old could hang around near the top of the leaderboard this week.
Leader Webb Simpson drops a shot at 8 but bounces back with a birdie at 9 to return to -3. That’s an outward half of 33 and he’s a shot clear of Australian Lucas Herbert, who has picked up shots at 2 and 4.
Forget Reed, the leader in the hat stakes is English amateur Barclay Brown, who sounds like an English character actor from the Terry-Thomas era. A member of last year’s Britain and Ireland Walker Cup team, Brown has made an excellent start: six pars and a birdie at 7 to sit tied third.
Bryson DeChambeau’s ‘drive a load of par 4s’ strategy hits an early bump as he bogeys one of his targeted holes, the 2nd. Perhaps the message sinks that it isn’t this straightforward as he only takes an iron off the tee at the 3rd.
Meanwhile, fellow major winner, Patrick Reed, has birdied the 3rd to go to -1. Reed is another of those to sign up with LIV. And just in case anybody doesn’t know, he’s wearing a LIV golf cap.
Justin Rose withdraws
Justin Rose, the runner-up at Carnoustie in 2018, has pulled out. The Englishman was seen warming up but he doesn’t appear for his 08.14 tee time. That’s a real shame. Rose has shown flickers of good form this season, finishing fourth at the Canadian Open three starts ago. And, of course, we all remember how he first shot to fame in this event when finishing fourth as a lanky teenage amateur at Royal Birkdale in 1998. Rose was also tied sixth in the last St Andrews Open in 2015 and finished runner-up at Carnoustie four years ago.
Another birdie for Webb Simpson, this time at 7, and the 36-year-old moves to -3. That’s good enough for a two-shot lead.
The American seems to like a fast start in this event. He was third after day one at Royal Portrush in 2019 and shot a 66 to lie fourth following the opening lap at Royal St George’s last year.
Despite all the talk of low scoring, the field is a collective +4 over par. These tucked pin placements help explain why. It’s also pretty chilly.
Some big names starting to go out and Bryson DeChambeau almost holes his approach at the 1st for eagle, his ball sucking back and just failing to catch the cup. Potential eagle becomes par as he shoves his short birdie try right.
DeChambeau claimed earlier this week that he reckons he has a chance to drive the par 4s at 2, 3, 7, 9, 10 and 12. Strangely, he didn’t say 18. We shall see if he can walk the walk and what good such a strategy does him.
Not the warmest of welcomes for Ian Poulter on the 1st tee earlier. Some boos in fact. Hard to think that the Englishman would be fazed but he almost hooked his opening tee shot out of bounds which is going some on the widest fairway in golf.
Polite applause for Phil Mickelson though and the six-time major champion/LIV disgrace finds the right-hand side of the fairway. He makes par, as does Poulter.
Preamble
Links golf is all about dealing with bad breaks. But imagine being Rory McIlroy after his third-place finish in the 2010 Open at St Andrews and being told you won’t be contesting another Claret Jug at the Home of Golf until 2022 due to knackering your leg playing football and a global pandemic.
But here we are 12 years later and Rory finally gets another chance to make history and do what so many of the greats have done: win an Open at St Andrews.
This is the 150th edition of the world’s oldest major and 30th at St Andrews. Tom Kidd pocketed 11 quid for winning the first to be held here in 1873 while this year’s champion banks $2.5million.
A scroll down memory lane at St Andrews shows a timeline of exalted champions: Bobby Jones 1927, Sam Snead 1946, Peter Thomson 1955, Bobby Locke 1957, Jack Nicklaus 1970 and 1978, Seve Ballesteros 1984, Nick Faldo 1990, Tiger Woods 2000 and 2005 and, erm, Zach Johnson in 2015.
The bookmakers think ‘Rory McIlroy 2022’ is the next entry but there’s an all-star cast with other ideas bidding to be announced as “the champion golfer of the year” on Sunday.
Here are the tee times for round one – all times BST
06.35 Paul Lawrie, Webb Simpson, Min Woo Lee
06.46 Sadom Kaewkanjana, Ben Campbell, Barclay Brown
06.57 Dean Burmester, Chan Kim, Brandon Wu
07.08 Ian Poulter, Jamie Donaldson, Guido Migliozzi
07.19 Garrick Higgo, MinKyu Kim, Ashley Chesters
07.30 Phil Mickelson, Lucas Herbert, Kurt Kitayama
07.41 Patrick Reed, Tom Hoge, JooHyung Kim
07.52 John Daly, Bryson DeChambeau, Cameron Tringale
08.03 Cameron Smith, Brooks Koepka, Seamus Power
08.14 Francesco Molinari, Tommy Fleetwood, Justin Rose
08.25 Cameron Young, Kyoung Hoon Lee, Robert MacIntyre
08.36 Zach Johnson, Billy Horschel, Corey Conners
08.47 Brian Harman, Pablo Larrazabal, Danny Willett
09.03 Stephen Dodd, JT Poston, Lee Westwood
09.14 Sepp Straka, Luke List, Justin De Los Santos
09.25 Ernie Els, Adri Arnaus, Brad Kennedy
09.36 Mackenzie Hughes, Scott Vincent, Victor Perez
09.47 Jason Kokrak, Nicolai Hojgaard, Sihwan Kim
09.58 Collin Morikawa, Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele
10.09 Shane Lowry, Justin Thomas, Victor Hovland
10.20 Will Zalatoris, Hideki Matsuyama, Tony Finau
10.31 Kevin Kisner, Chris Kirk, Takumi Kanaya
10.42 Dylan Frittelli, Trey Mullinax, Matthew Jordan
10.53 Anthony Quayle, Zander Lombard, John Parry
11.04 Thomas Detry, Richard Mansell, Marco Penge
11.15 Alexander Bjork, Oliver Farr, Matt Ford
11.36 Mark Calcavecchia, Ryan Fox, Jediah Morgan
11.47 Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Bernd Wiesberger, Sam Bairstow
11.58 Adrian Meronk, Haotong Li, Marcus Armitage
12.09 Thriston Lawrence, Fabrizio Zanotti, Alex Wrigley
12.20 Aaron Wise, Si Woo Kim, Sam Horsfield
12.31 Talor Gooch, Shaun Norris, Wyndham Clark
12.42 Henrik Stenson, Russell Henley, Aldrich Potgieter
12.53 Stewart Cink, Sergio Garcia, Aaron Jarvis
13.04 Sungjae Im, Paul Casey, Gary Woodland
13.15 Dustin Johnson, Adam Scott, Marc Leishman
13.26 Scottie Scheffler, Joaquin Niemann, Tyrrell Hatton
13.37 Darren Clarke, Richard Bland, Filippo Celli
13.48 Kevin Na, Kazuki Higa, Erik van Rooyen
14.04 David Duval, Justin Harding, Jordan Smith
14.15 Shugo Imahira, Jason Scrivener, David Law
14.26 Abraham Ancer, Yuto Katsuragawa, Emiliano Grillo
14.37 Louis Oosthuizen, Harris English, Keita Nakajima
14.48 Padraig Harrington, Thomas Pieters, Keith Mitchell
14.49 Tiger Woods, Matt Fitzpatrick, Max Homa
15.10 Jordan Spieth, Jon Rahm, Harold Varner III
15.21 Patrick Cantlay, Sam Burns, Mito Pereira
15.32 Keegan Bradley, Sebastian Munoz, Sahith Theegala
15.43 Laurie Canter, Dimitrios Papadatos, Matthew Griffin
15.54 John Catlin, Jamie Rutherford, David Carey
16.05 Mingyu Cho, Jorge Fernandez Valdes, Robert Dinwiddie
16.16 Lars Van Meijel, Jack Floydd, Ronan Mullarney
It’s just under 90 minutes since 1999 Open champion Paul Lawrie – using a yellow ball! – hit the opening tee shot of this 150th Open Championship.
Very few birdies so far with the pins tucked away although Lawrie’s playing partner, 2012 US Open champion Webb Simpson, has managed red numbers at 1 and 5 and leads at -2. Lawrie got tangled up in rough at the 4th to slip to +3 but has bounced back with a birdie at the 5th.
Your early leaderboard:
-2: Simpson (5)
-4: Burmester (3), M Kim (2)