Conditions were tricky on the opening morning of the Senior British Open at Royal County Down but nowhere near as difficult as the opening group made it out to be.
Without naming names the combined three-ball score was a staggering 29-over par.
There was enough prevailing wind, which pushes everything towards the sea, to make the Seniors tread carefully over the Newcastle links but with pin positions like bulls-eyes in the middle of most greens there was still opportunities to create birdies or better.
Tom Waston, the main draw at Newcastle this week and odds-on favourite, confirmed such notions immediately with an eagle three at the 522-yard par five first. From there the five-time Open winner played a shrewd tactical game to reach the turn in one-under.
Yesterday Watson said his desired approach would be to play to the front of many of the greens at Royal County Down, therefore avoiding most of the trouble long and taking his chances of two putting or getting up and down from the front aprons. All is going according to plan so far.
Christy O’Connor Jnr was playing in the group behind Watson and the 2000 champion was trying to stay as close to par as possible. The Galwayman was unable to defend his title last year after a leg injury ruled him out of the game but today he was one-over with six holes to play.
Having negotiated the more difficult outward nine in one-over 36, O’Connor Jnr may still get opportunities to get back on level terms on the more sheltered back nine.
At present Scotland’s Russell Weir and Japan’s Noboru Sugai share the early lead on three-under par. Both were approaching the latter part of their rounds. The defending champion Ian Stanley from Australia gets his round started just before 1 p.m.