TROON – Just hearing his name announced on the first tee of the British Open, with the claret jug on display, would have been enough for Sam Hutsby to feel he was living a dream.
Imagine standing on the tee at the eighth hole Thursday at Royal Troon tied for the lead.
It was early.
“I kind of had to pinch myself a little bit on that tee,” Hutsby said. “I thought, ‘Wow, this is a little bit surreal.’”
Far more real was a tee shot into the bunker, two shots to get out and a double bogey. That 3-under start turned into a 3-over 74, but with few complaints.
Hutsby made it to his first British Open — his first major — through final qualifying earlier this month. And even that was something he didn’t imagine when he decided to give up his pursuit of tournament golf to teach.
“I wanted to coach and try to give back. I really enjoyed it, to be honest,” Hutsby said. “It was great to help people. I actually learned quite a lot from it myself. I looked at the game a slightly different way.
“I was still trying to play competitively, and I was having some nice scores locally, and that made me realize, ‘OK, maybe I could give it another go.’”
He made it through Q-school at the end of 2022, had a full season on the European tour and now is trying to make his way back through the Challenge Tour.
But nothing could have prepared him for a major, for the crowds and the energy.
“I got up here quite early, traveled up here Friday, so I was here for the weekend. Every day that went by, I could feel the butterflies kind of going,” Hutsby said. “I’ve not really been settled all week, to be honest. I was actually amazed how calm I felt on the back nine today but didn’t really score well. So it was a bit of a mixed emotions.
“It was nice to know that I can feel that uncomfortable and still kind of hit some good shots and play some good golf.”
A different league
Xander Schauffele is finally a major champion after his one-shot win at the PGA Championship, and he received some belated congratulations from Tiger Woods. They are in the same group for the opening two rounds at Royal Troon.
“He asked me how it felt on the putting green,” Schauffele said. “Then I asked him how it felt to have 100 of them.”
Woods has 15 majors, the last one at the 2019 Masters when Schauffele was a runner-up.
“We had a nice chuckle before the round,” he said. “It puts it into perspective when you look at someone that’s done what he’s done, only having one.”
Not so happy return
Henrik Stenson wasn’t expecting another 63 like the last time he was at Royal Troon and won the British Open with a record score.
He wasn’t expecting a triple bogey on the par-3 eighth hole, either.
Stenson played the famed “Postage Stamp” in even par over four rounds when he won in 2016. But the wind confused him Thursday, and the Swede found himself between a soft pitching wedge or a gap wedge.
“Decided on the little, chippy wedge and let it go a little bit right, landed by the pin and ended up in a bunker, downhill lie,” he said.
And that’s when the trouble started.
The first attempt not only failed to get out of the bunker, it rolled into what he described as a “bad rake job.” He couldn’t get the next one out and it rolled under the lip. He had to play sideways, and got up-and-down for a 6.
“It’s always a dangerous place to be,” Stenson said. “Yeah, unfortunately, it cost two more than you’d hope.”
He opened with a 76.
Rough start
Of the dozen players who shot 80 or higher in the first round, five of them were past British Open champions. One of them stood out.
John Daly, Justin Leonard, Ernie Els and Todd Hamilton are all in their 50s and all but Hamilton are on the PGA Tour Champions. Els won his first senior major last week at Firestone.
But Cameron Smith? He just won the Open two years ago at St. Andrews. It was only his third time with an 80 or higher in a major, and his first since an 82 in the second round of the 2017 PGA Championship at Quail Hollow.
“Just a bad day, really,” Smith said. “If you had have told me yesterday that I was going to shoot that, I wouldn’t have said that was possible. But yeah, just a bit of a crappy start and didn’t really manage to hole any putts when I needed to to get back in it.”
Robson tribute
The British Open began with a tribute to Ivor Robson, the longtime starter at the Open and the European tour who died last October.
The gallery in the grandstand at 6:30 a.m. offered warm applause, and thus began the long day of announcing 158 players in the field.
“He was popular and well respected among all golfers who played in The Open,” Martin Slumbers, the R&A’s chief executive, said on the eve of the championship.
Robson served in his role for 41 years. The R&A estimates he has announced the names of 44 past, present or future Open champions. The BBC claims he announced the names of 18,995 players during his tenure.
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