Stephen Gallacher maintains that his first priority at St Andrews this week is to make his first Open cut, but after 15 holes of his first round it looked as if he would have to significantly upsize his goals.
Scotland’s top ranked player in the championship was four under par at that stage thanks to a three under front nine and another birdie on the 12th.
All that changed however with a bogey on 16 and a double bogey on 17, which left the Bathgate man signing for an anti-climactic one-under par 71.
“If I had parred in at four under that would have been a really good score but, in the circumstances, a 71 feels a bit like a 78,” he admitted.
“The conditions were as good as I’ve known at St Andrews and you can see how Rory McIlroy shot a 63.
“I’ve shot a 64 myself in the past in flat weather so I know it can be done. You’re going into receptive greens with short irons.
“I’ll go home tonight and have a long lie tomorrow before a late tee-off time and my target is still to complete the four days.
“You can’t win the tournament on a Thursday but you can lose it and we’ll see what I can do tomorrow and take it from there.”
Gallacher’s top five finish in the Scottish Open last week made him the most favoured Scot to have a good championship, but his Loch Lomond success may prove to be a double-edged sword.
He said, “It probably knackered me a bit to be honest because it was quite a strenuous week.
“Having said that, I’d rather come into an Open playing well than not playing well.”
Gallacher’s experience on the 17th was a snapshot of the danger the newly-lengthened Road Hole carries.
He added, “I hit my tee shot into the left rough, which is easy to do because it’s a very demanding tee shot now.
“You can get a really bad lie in there because it’s very thick. From there I tried to run a seven iron up to the green but it snagged in the rough and I chipped and three-putted.
“That was really disappointing but I’ll not be the first or last to have a bad 17th so I shouldn’t get too down on myself.”Scottish downfallThe 17th hole claimed another two Scottish victims in Sandy Lyle and Colin Montgomerie.
The former champion took a calamitous triple-bogey seven, while Monty carded an eventful six.
Lyle hit his drive into the grounds of the Old Course Hotel and then proceeded to overhit an approach through the back of the green and thin a chip.
Meanwhile, the European Ryder Cup captain followed the same route off the tee but made what was actually a good six in the circumstances by getting up and down from the notorious Road Hole bunker with his second ball.
Lyle’s three over par 75 leaves him in need of second-day heroics to make the cut.
He said, “It’s annoying because you know the 17th hole is going to be a bash off the tee. You’ve just got to get one shot away.
“I just hit a rubbish first tee shot, leaked it right, although it actually wasn’t that far off. It was only out of bounds by a couple of feet. It was that close to being in bounds.
“It looked worse from the tee, it looked way out but I was told it actually only went over the wall by a couple of feet.
“If I had actually hit it worse, I had a better chance of getting back on to the fairway, because I would have hit the roof and skidded left and probably been all right.”It’s a little frustrating but I didn’t play very well, anyway. It was very scrappy golf 20 putts for the first nine holes.”
Monty managed one better than Lyle with a two over par 74.
Of all the Scots in the field, Martin Laird’s pre-tournament excitement was probably the greatest given the fact that this was his first Open at St Andrews.
So the disappointment he felt after his first round experience was therefore also probably the greatest. He, too, put together a round of 74.
The Glasgow man, now based in America, said, “The experience wasn’t what I wanted it to be.
“I didn’t play well at all and it wasn’t much fun out there. Golf never is when you’re fighting your game right from the start.
“The course was as easy as it’s going to get no wind and receptive greens. I drove OK but my iron game wasn’t good at all, which is not what you want round here.
“There are a lot of people under par so I will have to play really well tomorrow.
“I’ll have to try and be more aggressive than you would probably want to be round here, but the position I’m in I don’t have a choice.”