Benign conditions Thursday at The Open Championship dulled the teeth of Royal St. George’s just a bit. The field produced more bogey-free rounds on Day 1 one at the 149th Open (six) than the entirety of the previous two trips to this venue combined (2003 and 2011, four). Eighteen players shot 67 or better in the first round, which was 10 more than we saw all week 10 years ago.
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Here are the top notes to know from Day 1 one of The Open Championship:
1. Louis Oosthuizen has once again thrust himself into the conversation at a major championship, carding a bogey-free 64 at Royal St. George’s. It was just the second bogey-free round in Oosthuizen’s major championship career and his first in an Open Championship. History says that if Oosthuizen gets off to a good start at The Open, he sticks around near the top. The previous two times he has started this championship with a round in the 60s, he has won by seven strokes (2010) and lost a playoff (2015). Oosthuizen is now 14 under par in the majors this year, the best cumulative score of anyone in the men’s game.
2. Oosthuizen has seven top-three finishes in major championships since 2012, but no victories in that span. Four other players — Jordan Spieth, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson have had seven or more such finishes in the majors in that stretch. Those players have combined to win 10 times in the majors since 2012. This week marks 11 years since Oosthuizen won at St. Andrews — if he wins this week, it would be the longest gap between a player’s first and second career victories at The Open Championship.
3. Spieth fired an opening-round 65, the third time in his career he has started a major championship with a score of 65 or lower. In each of the previous two instances — the 2015 Masters and 2017 Open — he went on to win. This is the seventh round of 65 or lower in the majors for Spieth since 2015, most of any player in that span. Spieth leads all players at The Open since 2015 in scoring average (69.3), birdies or better (90), rounds in the 60s (13) and number of times inside the top five after a round is completed (8).
4. Alongside Spieth at 5 under par is Brian Harman, who opened the championship with four birdies in his first five holes. Despite some strong play in 2021, Harman’s presence atop the board is a bit unexpected, as he missed the cut in each of his previous four appearances at The Open. The lefty hit 15 greens in regulation on Day 1, a mark bettered by only one player in the field — Brandt Snedeker (16 G.I.R.).
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5. The renaissance year of Stewart Cink continues. The 2009 Open champion, who is 48 years old, shot the first bogey-free round of his Open Championship career, which dates to 1998. Thursday’s score of 66 matches the lowest of his career at The Open, as he also shot a first-round 66 in ’09 on his way to victory. Twelve years after preventing Tom Watson from becoming the oldest player to win The Open, Cink could now claim the title for himself. The oldest man to win this championship is Tom Morris Sr., who was 46 when he won in 1867.
6. Players in the early half of the draw played in more favorable conditions Thursday, and the scores reflected it. The first half of tee times had a scoring average of 70.11, while the latter half averaged 71.75. Of the 47 rounds in the 60s on Day 1, 32 of them were shot in the early block of tee times. Overall, the field scoring average of 70.96 marked the lowest in any opening round in the modern history of The Open.
7. While not the flashiest of performances, Rory McIlroy’s level par 70 puts him in decent position to capitalize on his recent, overbearing trend in the majors. Since the beginning of 2015, McIlroy is a combined 34 over par in the first round of major championships but is 60 under par in Rounds 2 through 4. In that span, only Brooks Koepka (-79) and Spieth (-63) have a better score to par in the closing three rounds. Remarkably, McIlroy birdied the first hole of an Open Championship for the first time in his career on Thursday.
8. Reigning PGA champion Phil Mickelson shot the worst opening-round score of his major championship career, posting a birdie-less 80 on Thursday. Mickelson is tied for 155th place, the worst position he has been in after any round in a major. How likely is it that Mickelson makes a charge on Friday to get inside the cut line? From 2000 through 2019, there were 131 instances of a player shooting a score of 80 or worse in the first round. Only two of them came back to make the cut (Ernie Els in 2008 and Paul Lawrie in 2013).
9. Marcel Siem celebrated his 41st birthday Thursday in style, carding a 3-under-par round of 67. Siem has celebrated this way before — in fact, the last player to shoot 67 or lower at The Open Championship on his birthday was Siem, who also shot 67 11 years earlier at St. Andrews. Siem won on the Challenge Tour (the European Tour’s developmental circuit) in his last start before Thursday’s birthday bash.
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10. Even on Day 1, position is key: 53 of the last 60 Open champions were at or within four strokes of the lead after 18 holes. Since 1960, 73 percent of players to win The Open were inside the top 10 after the opening round. Over the last 15 years, the first-round scoring average of players to win this championship is a stout 67.5. In 2011, the last time The Open was held at Royal St. George’s, eventual champion Darren Clarke was tied for sixth, three shots off the pace.
(Photo of Louis Oosthuizen, right: Gareth Fuller / PA Images via Getty Images)
Justin Ray is a contributor at The Athletic and the Head of Content for Twenty First Group, a sports intelligence agency that works with players, broadcasters, manufacturers and media. He has been in sports media for more than 10 years and was previously a senior researcher for ESPN and Golf Channel. Follow Justin on Twitter @JustinRayGolf
