There were so many birdies and eagles being blasted on day one of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, you half expected a visit by a concerned representative from the RSPB.
Forget the sunshine – there wasn’t any of that – it was a day to make hay while the wind didn’t blow.
The anticipated arrival of Storm Amy and her bellows should change that, of course. The leaderboard will probably appear on the Shipping Forecast.
While Ryan Brehm, Matthew Jordan and Darius van Driel set a brisk early pace in the benign conditions with nine-under 63s, there was a former world No 1 lurking ominously in the upper echelons.
Dustin Johnson – remember him? – posted a delightfully assembled eight-under 64 over the championship links at Carnoustie in the company of his father-in-law, the ice hockey great Wayne Gretzky.
Now plying his trade on the LIV series, Johnson, the former Masters and US Open champion, has become something of a forgotten man.
With no world ranking points up for grabs on the Saudi-backed circuit, the 41-year-old is now down in 628th spot on the global pecking order. His aforementioned faither-in-law is almost above him.
Johnson can still knock it round, though. In his last five strokeplay rounds, he’s 33-under. Four years ago, Johnson won five matches out of five as the US romped to a 19-9 win over Europe in the Ryder Cup.
Here in 2025, he was watching the USA’s defeat at Bethpage Park last Sunday from a distance. “I was on the couch,” he said with a wry smile.
Johnson may have been on the outside peering in, but he still harbours Ryder Cup ambitions.
“I’d love to,” said Johnson when asked about making a Ryder Cup return. “I wanted to be there. I just need to play a bit better and I can be there for Adare (Manor in 2027).
“I finally feel like I have my game coming back into form. I’ve got a lot more confidence in it and I am starting to swing it well again.
“I went through about a year where I just wasn’t swinging at it very well. But I feel I am now starting to hit a lot of nice shots and feel a lot more consistent. The last few months have been nice.”
While Johnson ambled his way up the leaderboard and packed six birdies and an eagle into his first 12 holes, Robert MacIntyre settled back into the home comforts with a decent 66 at Carnoustie.
Having played his part in Europe’s thrilling Ryder Cup win last Sunday, this was a very different office to the one he experienced in raucous New York.
“There were no shouts of abuse,” grinned MacIntyre of an atmosphere that was as genteel as a floral art club.
As always at Carnoustie, of course, there is the rat-a-tat-tat coming from the nearby Ministry of Defence rifle range to keep you on your toes. From the flying F-bombs of the Bethpage boors to the bullets of Barry Buddon.
“It’s not easy and the hardest one is when you are trying to hit a delicate chip or a putt and, just as you are about to make the strike, you hear the ‘pow, pow’,” chuckled MacIntyre of the intermittent racket.
“But it’s better that than someone shouting at the top of your backswing when you’ve got a match on the line in the Ryder Cup on 18.”
A bogey on the first hole, after finding a bunker, was hardly the ideal start for MacIntyre but he rallied with four birdies on his next six holes.
“Stupid bogey on the first,” said the Oban man, who finished a shot behind his fellow Scot, Grant Forrest. “After that, I didn’t play great, but I played smart by missing in the right spots and taking advantage of the par 5s when I could.”
At the head of affairs, Brehm, who sits 1407th on the world rankings and has missed his last nine cuts in various outings, got in the groove at Kingsbarns with that 63.
Van Driel birdied five of his last six at that same venue in his nine-under round while Jordan had back-to-back eagles in his blitz of the Old Course.
On the amateur front, meanwhile, Andy Murray enjoyed his day on the Carnoustie links. One of his golfing smash hits may have generated more of a hooting, whooping reception on centre court, mind you.
“I hit one of the best shots I’ve ever hit,” explained the two-time Wimbledon champion. “I was in the rough and I had to slice it through the trees. For someone at my level, that could’ve been a disaster.
“But it went through the trees and it was going towards the green. We heard nothing from the crowd, so we assumed it was in the bunker. We got there and it was 10-feet from the hole. I thought, ‘some sort of applause would’ve been nice’.”
These golf spectators are a tough old lot to please, eh?
