British Open first round sees no rust on Tiger Woods

Well if that’s rusty, then my name is Ferrous Oxide. Okay, it was not one of Tiger Woods’s finest rounds. Between his wayward tee shots and his flaky putting, the end result was a minor miracle - how he rescued par after fluffing that bunker shot I’ll never know. But of course Tiger Woods doesn’t do minor miracles, he just does Tiger Woods. The eagle flourish on the 18th said it all for me. Winged Foot is already a memory.

My only slight concern is that if I recall rightly - I can’t remember for the life of me the article I read it in - Tiger has won four out of six times he has been five under after the first round of a major. Um, that’s not as good a statistic as they make out. It means he fails more than 30% of the time! Mind you, by my ropey mathematics, that makes a price of more than 3 (effective 2) a bit of a bargain.

We’ll know soon enough Friday whether it’s likely to be fool’s gold as Tiger is one of the early starters. But some souls are already celebrating on the Betfair forum, including one who has chosen to share with us the entire lyrics of Eye of the Tiger. Mmmm, really grateful for that!

He certainly cannot afford to relax as he is still not even the leader. That honour is taken by one Graeme McDowell of Northern Ireland, who is by some accounts I read a man who likes to lead. Not only that, but links golf is said to be his meat and drink. Here’s how one Betfair forumite put it quite convincingly: “Superb player, great recent form and great links player. The course he grew up on Royal Portrush is almost identical to Hoylake.He’ll be thereabouts come Sunday evening.” Remember, you heard it here second.

Then there’s a cast of menacing old and new hands, including an inordinate number of my lays just waiting to rub my face in it. the most prominent being Ernie Els, Sergio Garcia and Adam Scott. Well, I’ll fight my way out of that bunker when I see how high the wall is. I think a lot of players were flattered Thursday by the way the conditions were eased by the surprise overnight rain. They may not be so fortunate over the next three days.

But we also have Phil Mickelson just three shots off the pace and two behind Tiger. He went backwards and forwards Thursday, still showing signs of not quite getting to grips with this type of course despite all the practice he’s put in. Still think it’s a strong possibility he’ll be in the mix come Sunday.

I suppose there’s an outside chance Colin Montgomerie might join him. One over is not total disaster at this stage but, as Monty rather clumsily put it after Thursday’s round, the “puttee” needs to get to grips with his putter. I wonder if his many girlfriends think of him as putty?

But I doubt the two great English hopes Luke Donald and David Howell will make it up front. And Padraig Harrington too - what disappointments. In gact most of my other picks have let me down big time, with the very worthy exception of the Scandinavian who can’t spell for toffee.

As I thought, putting proved a key divider of men and boys and will continue to do so. Maybe that’s a reason to slightly worry for Tiger’s welfare over the next three rounds. Let’s hope he puts me out of my misery Thursday morning.