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How about a left-handed winner this year? History says no. Surprisingly, Bob Charles in 1963 (Royal Lytham) and Phil Mickelson (2013) are the only zurts who have had their names engraved on the Claret Jug. It is not Wimbledon nor Augusta National, where the leftists won six of the 12 editions from 2003 to 2014.
This week there are four leftists on the field: Mickelson, local man Robert MacIntyre, American Brian Harman and South African Garrick Higgo.
All four are already on the field and MacIntyre (2) and Harman (1) have taken the first steps to sit at -1. Mickelson is tied after five straight, while Higgo is +2 after 6.
First classification table
Simpson makes a sloppy bogey at 10 and that means the leaderboard is grouped together.
-2: Simpson (10), Brown (9), Herbert (5), Tringale (3) -1: Wu (8), Poulter (6), M Kim (5), Kitayama (5), Hoge (4) , J Kim (4), Smith (3), Young (2), MacIntyre (2), Horschel (1)
Updated at 09:00 BST
John Daly, who wears his now-familiar Santa beard, has begun to be just as bogey-par.
‘Wild Thing’ should have the most curious major record in men’s golf. In 76 starts, he only has three top 10, but two of them are wins! This includes his memorable victory at St Andrews in 1995 when he came together to win a playoff after watching with ashen face Costantino Rocca sink a miracle putt of long-range birds from the ‘Valley of Sin’ to tie. Daly has not made the cut at an Open since 2012.
John Daly comes out on day 3. Photography: Richard Sellers / PA
Updated at 08.59 BST
Cameron Tringale, leader of the first round of last week’s Scottish Open (finished sixth), has made another brilliant start. The Birds at 1 and 3 brought the Californian to -2 and a Simpson shot back.
Tringale has yet to win the PGA Tour, so it would seem an unlikely place to get that first elusive victory. He was tied 26th at last year’s Open at Royal St George’s and 14th at last month’s U.S. Open (his best major final), so perhaps the 34-year-old could stay at the top of the rankings this week.
Leader Webb Simpson drops a shot at 8, but recovers with a bird at 9 to return to -3. This is an outside half of 33 and is ahead of Australian Lucas Herbert, who has taken shots at 2 and 4.
Forget Reed, the leader in hat betting is English fan Barclay Brown, who looks 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 pairs and a 7-birdie to stay in third place.
Bryson DeChambeau’s strategy of “driving a lot of torque 4” comes to a head when he goes crazy with one of his pointed holes, the second. Maybe the message sinks that it’s not that simple, as it only pulls one iron from the t-shirt to the third.
Meanwhile, the big winner, Patrick Reed, has made birds the 3rd to go to -1. Reed is another of those who sign up for LIV. And in case anyone doesn’t know, wear a LIV golf cap.
Justin Rose retires
Justin Rose, the 2018 Carnoustie runner-up, has retired. The Englishman has been seen warming up but does not show up for his start time at 08.14. This is a real shame. Rose has shown good blink this season, finishing fourth at the Canadian Open three starts ago. And of course, we all remember how he first came to fame at this event when he finished fourth as an amateur teenager at Royal Birkdale in 1998. Rose also finished sixth tied at the last St Andrews Open in 2015 and went finishing runner-up at Carnoustie four years ago.
Justin Rose during training on Wednesday. Photography: David Davies / PA
Updated at 08.35 BST
Another bird for Webb Simpson, this time at age 7, and the 36-year-old goes to -3. That’s good enough for a two-shot advantage.
The American seems to like a quick start to this event. He was third after the first day at Royal Portrush in 2019 and shot a 66 to finish fourth after the first lap at Royal St George’s last year.
Although there is talk of low scores, the field is a collective +4 above parity. These pine locations help explain why. It’s also pretty cold.
Some big names start to come out and Bryson DeChambeau almost makes out his approach to first place by the eagle, his ball sucks back and just fails to grab the cup. The potential eagle becomes the same as you push your short bird attempt.
DeChambeau stated earlier this week that he believes he has a chance to drive par 4 to 2, 3, 7, 9, 10 and 12. Interestingly, he didn’t say 18. We’ll see if he can walk and what. good strategy makes him.
It’s not the warmest welcome for Ian Poulter on the first tee before. In fact, some boos. Hard to think the Englishman would be baffled, but he almost hooked his first out-of-bounds shot, which is happening on the wider golf course.
However, polite applause for Phil Mickelson and the misfortune of the six-time main champion / LIV finds the right side of the street. He’s a couple, just like Poulter.
A sense of how wide Poulter’s starting pitch went left on the first. Photography: Kevin C Cox / Getty Images
Updated at 08.22 BST
Preamble
Links golf is all about dealing with bad breaks. But imagine being Rory McIlroy after his third place finish at the 2010 St Andrews Open and being told you won’t be playing another Claret Jug at Home of Golf until 2022 due to a broken leg playing in football and a global pandemic.
But here we are 12 years later and Rory finally has another chance to make history and do what so many of the greats have done: win an Open in St Andrews.
This is the 150th edition of the oldest major in the world and the 30th in St Andrews. Tom Kidd pocketed £ 11 to win the first to be held here in 1873, while this year’s champion racked up $ 2.5 million.
A scroll down memory in 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 1992. and, erm, Zach Johnson in 2015.
Bookmakers think ‘Rory McIlroy 2022’ is the next entry, but there is a star cast with other ideas that will be announced as “the champion golfer of the year” on Sunday.
These are the start times of the first round: all BST times
06.35 Paul Lawrie, Webb Simpson, Min Woo Lee06.46 Sadom Kaewkanjana, Ben Campbell, Barclay Brown06.57 Dean Burmester, Chan Kim, Brandon Wu07.08 Ian Poulter, Jamie Donaldson, Guido Migliozzi07.19 Garrick Higgo, MinKyu Kim, Ashley Chesters07 .30 Phil Mickelson, Lucas Herbert, Kurt Kitayama07.41 Patrick Reed, Tom Hoge, JooHyung Kim07.52 John Daly, Bryson DeChambeau, Cameron Tringale08.03 Cameron Smith, Brooks Koepka, Seamus Power08.14 Francesco Molinari, Tommy Fleetwood, Justin Rose08 .25 Cameron Young, Kyoung Hoon Lee, Robert MacIntyre08.36 Zach Johnson, Billy Horschel, Corey Conners08.47 Brian Harman, Pablo Larrazabal, Danny Willett09.03 Stephen Dodd, JT Poston, Lee Westwood09.14 Sepp Straka, Luke List, Justin De Los Santos09.25 Ernie Els, Adri Arnaus, Brad Kennedy09.36 Mackenzie Hughes, Scott Vincent, Victor Perez09.47 Jason Kokrak, Nicolai Hojgaard, Sihwan Kim09.58 Collin Morikawa, Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele10.09 Shane Lowry, Justin Thomas , Victor Hovland10.20 Will Zalatoris, Hi dek i Matsuyama, Tony Finau10.31 Kevin Kisner, Chris Kirk, Takumi Kanaya10.42 Dylan Frittelli, Trey Mullinax, Matthew Jordan10.53 Anthony Quayle, Zander Lombard, John Parry11.04 Thomas Detry, Richard Mansell, Marco Penge11.15 Alexander Bjork , Oliver Farr, Matt Ford11.36 Mark Calcavecchia, Ryan Fox, Jediah Morgan11.47 Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Bernd Wiesberger, Sam Bairstow11.58 Adrian Meronk, Haotong Li, Marcus Armitage12.09 Thriston Lawrence, Fabrizio Zanotti, Alex Wrigley A Wigley12.20 Si Woo Kim, Sam Horsfield12.31 Talor Gooch, Shaun Norris, Wyndham Clark12.42 Henrik Stenson, Russell Henley, Aldrich Potgieter12.53 Stewart Cink, Sergio Garcia, Aaron Jarvis13.04 Sungjae Im, Paul Casey, Gary Woodland13.15 Dustin Johnson , Adam Scott, Marc Leishman13.26 Scottie Scheffler, Joaquin Niemann, Tyrrell Hatton13.37 Darren Clarke, Richard Bland, Filippo Celli13.48 Kevin Na, Kazuki Higa, Erik van Rooyen14.04 David Duval, Justin Harding, Jordan Smith14.15 Shugo Imahira, Jason Scrivener, David Law1 4. 26 Abraham Ancer, Yuto Katsuragawa, Emiliano Grillo14.37 Louis Oosthuizen, Harris English, Keita Nakajima14.48 Padraig Harrington, Thomas Pieters, Keith Mitchell14.49 Tiger Woods, Matt Fitzpatrick, Max Homa15.10 Jordan Spieth, Jon Rahm, Harold Varner III15 .21 Patrick Cantlay, Sam Burns, Mito Pereira15.32 Keegan Bradley, Sebastian Munoz, Sahith Theegala15.43 Laurie Canter, Dimitrios Papadatos, Matthew Griffin15.54 John Catlin, Jamie Rutherford, David Carey16.05 Mingyu Cho, Jorge Fernandez Valdes, Robert Dinwiddie 16.16 Lars Van Meijel, Jack Floydd, Ronan Mullarney
It’s been just under 90 minutes since 1999 Open champion Paul Lawrie wearing a yellow ball! – made the first start of this 150th open championship.
Very few birds so far with hidden pines, although Lawrie’s playmate, 2012 U.S. Open champion Webb Simpson, has achieved red numbers at 1 and 5 and leads in – 2. Lawrie got wrapped up in 4th to fall to +3, but recovered with a bird in 5th.
Your first leaderboard:
-2: Simpson (5) -4: Burmester (3), M Kim (2)