When Mark O’Meara accepted the R&A’s offer to hit the opening shot of the 146th Open on the occasion of what is now the last of his 31 appearances, the farthest thought from his mind would have been that he might need to take a second shot from the tee and would complete it in a quadruple-bogey eight.
Conditions had been breezy but benign throughout the week’s practice and the course and bunkers were firm and dry but Thursday morning arrived with a stiff wind and sideways rain blowing in off the Irish Sea. And at 6.35am the 1998 Open champion and honorary member of the club where he achieved his famous win sent his drive off on the wind and saw it sail out of bounds and into the foliage over the fence to the right.
His second attempt found a fairway bunker on the left and after flicking it out from a tough lie it took him four more shots to complete the nightmare start. Chris Wood, to his credit, managed a one-putt par and Ryan Moore of the US had a double bogey six as the threesome completed the hole in a combined 18 shots. By the time they teed off at the 2nd it was 6.58am and poor old O’Meara, 60 this year and no longer exempt unless he achieves a top‑10 finish, proceeded to rack up a bogey five and it was clear if it had not been already that he faced a long morning.
“I was a little bit nervous but I wouldn’t say I was overly nervous,” he said after signing for an 11-over 81. “Early on it was tough only because it was raining. When you’re not playing good and the course is playing pretty tough, and I’ve seen it way, way worse than this, you can still get it around Birkdale. The conditions were a little trying but it wasn’t impossible. The wind was obviously completely different. It’s more of the wind that normally happens here. In the practice rounds it was coming the other direction, and there wasn’t much in the practice rounds.”
The 21-year-old amateur Maverick McNealy, playing in the second grouping and who unsurprisingly admitted he had never started a round in conditions like it, duly followed his fellow American over the fence at the 1st on his way to a three-over seven, Jeunghun Wang of South Korea joined them to make it three from three. Thongchai Jaidee then made double bogey in the next grouping after hitting it into bushes just short of the fence and advancing it up the rough before completing his six.
One sign of progress came from the veteran Paul Broadhurst, however, a playing partner of Thongchai’s and who managed a two-putt par, the first man on the 1st green in regulation.
Par at the acknowledged most difficult opening hole on the Open rotation was always going to be a good score whatever the conditions and though these had been anticipated, the players had difficultly adjusting until the rain stopped at around 7.15am and the wind began to drop. Nevertheless another American maverick, Bryson DeChambeau, and KT Kim of South Korea both recorded sevens after walking to the tee without their umbrellas though in between times Alex Noren showed the rest what would be possible with a birdie three as the conditions eased further.
Thongchai recovered from his double-bogey start to eventuallysign for a 70 and Wood also finished well with a three-under back nine for a 71. “The wind has definitely dropped and the sun is coming out now,” the Englishman said after shaking hands with O’Meara and Moore. “I wish I had started an hour later, for a bit more sleep really, but the conditions, wind off the left, raining, half past six in the morning ... To come back to four-under for the last 10 or 11 holes was good.”
O’Meara held it together coming back too, and even made birdie at the 17th to help him to a two-over total having at one point feared he was going to shoot a 90. “I knew coming here if the weather got tough it was going to be difficult but I’ve played 30 Open championships coming into this week and I’ve only missed the cut six times, so I take tremendous pride in that.
“Obviously this year is going to be a different scenario, when you post a score like I did today, you’re kind of out of the tournament already. When you hit one straight right off the first tee out of bounds, it would be like standing on the first tee at the Ballybunion and hitting the graveyard. My day was toast after that tee shot.”
O’Meara, who has his 27-year-old son caddying for him, intends to do better in his second and final round of Open golf – no diplomatic back strains here – and remains grateful for the R&A asking him to hit the first shot like Colin Montgomerie before him at Troon last year, when the Scot became the only man on the day to make double-bogey at the 1st after getting trapped in a bunker. Next year at Carnoustie it might be a little more difficult to find a taker for the job.
