Carnoustie, Scotland – Sergio Garcia mockingly gave himself the title of “most improved” after the first round of the British Open on Thursday, but he’s looking for harder titles to win.
Garcia’s 6-under-par 65 came eight years after he opened the 1999 Open here with an 89. Next day, he wept after he shot 83.
Garcia has the same number of major championships (none) he had as a 19-year-old. He is now using a belly putter, perhaps a little unseemly for a youth of 27, in order to fix that. He had nothing higher than a 4 on Thursday’s card and shot 4-under-par 31 on the back nine at Carnoustie.
That left Garcia two strokes ahead of Paul McGinley and four up on Tiger Woods, whose 3-under 69 featured a 90-foot birdie on the 16th and a controversial ruling on the 10th.
Garcia rolled in a birdie putt on the first hole and told caddie Glenn Murray, “We’re four ahead of last time,” referring to his opening triple bogey in 1999.
He said he finally listened to Vijay Singh, a proponent of the long putter. He also scoffed at the fact that no one has won a major using one.
“It’s just one of those stats and stupid little things you guys write about,” Garcia told the media. “If I have to use a plastic bag to get into the hole, I’ll use that.”
Garcia banged in a 30-foot birdie on the 10th and two-putted for birdies on both par-5s.
McGinley was also at 6-under but couldn’t stay there. He tried to fight the rainy, chilly morning with a pair of oversized gloves.
“I’ve got tea bags in my pockets, too,” said McGinley, who sank the clinching Ryder Cup putt for Europe in 2004.
Woods eagled the sixth hole but had played an indifferent back nine before he came up well short of the hole on the 248-yard, par-3 16th.
“And I roasted a 2-iron there, too,” he said.
Stuck on the bottom shelf, he held up both hands when the putt sank and took a grinning bow.
But his round might have been helped on the 10th, when his drive came to rest in gnarly rough and TV cables. An official ruled the cables were immovable, and Woods was able to take a drop, although he claimed his new lie was worse. He made par. A few minutes later, a TV technician did move one of the cables.
“It was a weird ruling because I didn’t ask for it,” Woods said. “I haven’t seen one like it before.”
Michael Campbell, Markus Brier of Austria, U.S. Open champ Angel Cabrera, Boo Weekley and 18-year-old Rory McIlroy comprised the group at 68.
Phil Mickelson bogeyed the final hole to shoot par 71. The 499-yard 18th yielded birdies only to Paul Lawrie and Andres Romero and played to an average score of 4.71. Five players had triple bogey or worse.
Only 17 percent of the field hit the 18th green in regulation.
“Toughest finishing hole in championship golf,” Stewart Cink said. “If you bust your drive you’ve got bunkers and a burn to worry about.
“Then you’re hitting 3-wood and you’ve got out of bounds, just paces off the green to the left. It just plays so long.”
“It was 520 to the pin today,” Tom Lehman said. “But when we had the wind with us on Sunday, I got there with a wedge.”
The average score for the day was 73.2 strokes. On that horrid Thursday in 1999, it was 78.1. No one broke par that day, and the leader, Rod Pampling, shot 86 the next day to miss the cut. There were 24 par-breakers Thursday.
“The greens were soft; they’d hold flighted shots,” Adam Scott said. “That’s probably not the way it was meant to be played.”
“It wasn’t hard today. It was just fiddly,” said Nick Faldo, who shot 79 in his first competitive round since November.
With five top-10 finishes in his past six British Opens, Garcia hopes he’s paid the fiddler long enough.
