Ducks: nice weather for them. Photograph: Theo Heimann/AFP/Getty Images

2.57pm: America’s Anthony Kim has birdied the third, so he’s the sole leader as it stands. Who he? He’s the man who’s won two of the last five tournaments he’s played, that’s who he is. He’s the man who’s fifth in the PGA money stakes this season, that’s who he is. He’s the man who’s just dropped a shot at the fourth to render all my on-the-hoof research a meaningless waste of time.

2.50pm: Mike Weir (a man who, along with Graeme Storm, Ross Fisher and Stewart Cink, has a watery name rather apt for the conditions at Birkdale today) rattles in an eagle at the 17th and moves to +1.

2.48pm: Garcia has joined Karlsson in making a fool of me (any comments along the lines of “you do a perfectly good job of it yourself” will be ignored) by missing his putt. He kicks off with a bogey, then.

2.46pm: Garcia, who found the rough with his second shot at the first, plays a lovely delicate chip down the slope, so he should par comfortably. Karlsson, meanwhile, has found another bunker and yet again his escape runs through the green.

2.42pm: Poulter holes his par putt on the last, so he’s in the clubhouse with a 72. Inside only Goosen is ahead of him.

2.38pm: Karlsson drops a shot at the sixth, meaning we have a seven-way tie for the lead. On par. And there’s another dozen on +1. Very tight at the top.

2.35pm: Sergio Garcia tees off. Some hilarious card shouts “In the hole!” as he does so. A revenge fantasy plays in my mind in which Garcia stalks into the bank of spectators, picks out the idiot, and begins beating him with his club screaming “IN WHERE? IN WHERE?”. That’d be so satisfying.

2.30pm: Karlsson responds to my praise by burying his ball deep in the greenside bunker at the sixth. His escape trundles through the green and into the grubby fringes.

2.28pm: Cabrera is fading faster than cheap garden furniture left out in the summer sun - he’s drifted out to three-over after eight.

2.27pm: KJ Choi is also going for a nice cup of tea and a sit down, and he’s got a 72 in his back pocket. It might look a little less impressive by 9pm, but right now that’s an excellent day’s work from the South Korean.

2.24pm: Westwood is in the clubhouse with a 75 - after a dire start, he’s actually played fairly well. A cold putter has been is shortcoming.

2.21pm: How many obscure terms from Wikipedia’s golfing glossary can I shoehorn into this OBO, I wonder. I’m certainly looking forward to someone shooting a Golden Ferret. Poulter, wearing a woolly hat over a baseball cap, rolls in a birdie to go to +2 with one to play.

2.15pm: Has it been mentioned previously that there has never been a European winner of The Open at Birkdale. No? Well, it has now. Karlsson, bidding to change that record, finds yet another green in regulation at the fifth. It’s a good 35-footer, but he rolls his putt to within 12 inches of the hole. As I mentioned a moment ago, he is playing (to use the golfing vernacular) really jolly well.

2.12pm: Westwood misses the simple birdie putt his left himself at the 17th. Gah! He just wants this day to end. Karlsson, on the other hand, is playing beautifully early doors.

2.10pm: Westwood eagle-putts to within a foot at 17. “What’s happened to Rich Beem?” asks Simon Thomas. “He was having a titanic ‘mare and is now nowhere to be seen. Has he withdrawn?” He has disappeared from all the leaderboards, so I can only assume he’s pulled out, joining Sandy Lyle on the sidelines. If that’s the case you’ve got to wonder what’s wrong with the golfing psyche. Is there any other sport in which participants so readily pull out when the going gets tough?

2.05pm: Immelman finds the spectators with his second shot at the first. And it’s fun and games for Cabrera at the seventh - he’s chipped from the greenside rough into the bunker.

1.59pm: Karlsson pars the fourth to maintain his lead. Young English qualifier Jamie Howarth, who turned pro just three months ago, is finding life a little harder - he’s 12-over after eight.

1.56pm: Jean van de Velde is holding things together - he’s par for the course after seven. And Karlsson is out there on his own as leader after Cabrera and his woolly hat drop a shot.

1.52pm: A duckling floating on a pitta bread - don’t often see that, do you?

1.50pm: Greg Norman has made an entertaining start - he’s gone par, bogey, birdie over the first three. There’s life in the old shark yet.

1.48pm: Westwood holds a wobbly putt for par on the 16th, but Karlsson misses the chance to go two under after three, just pulling his putt wide at the third.

1.44pm: Robert Karlsson, our joint-leader, plays a cracking approach to the third, but the effect is somewhat ruined by his daft beanie hat. He and Angel Cabrera (who is also sporting some woolly headwear and, by the by, is also co-leader) look like a couple of hikers braving the wilds. Someone tell them it’s July.

1.40pm: Michael Campbell throws away his birdie at the fourth with a bogey at the fifth. He’s back to +1. Monty goes within an inch or two of a monster birdie putt at the 14th, so he stays at three over. Conditions do seem to have eased a touch, though it’s still very blowy, so we might see the scores dropping this afternoon. And Padraig Harrington’s elfin features appear in front of the branded hoardings that provide the background in the TV interview area. He pronounces himself “quite happy”, which is a pretty fair assessment I’d say.

1.35pm: So far 103 men have headed out on to the course - two are under par. Niclas Fasth, currently one over, hits an iron in to within a couple of feet of the pin on the 5th.

1.31pm: Afternoon all. “You can see what the gusts are doing to his waterproof trousers,” is the commentary that greets me at the start of my stint. This could be an entertaining afternoon …

1.30pm: Having sent a booming iron into the 13th green, Monty misses a 15-foot effort for birdie, but stays at +3. The weather looks as though it might be clearing a tad; John Ashdown will be here to enjoy it, for I am off.

1.25pm: Robert Karlsson has opened with a birdie, his second shot rolling to within five feet of the pin.

1.20pm: Goosen taps home for a bogey at the last and signs for a 71. That’s a spectacularly good effort in the circumstances. Harrington does likewise for his 74. That’s not bad, and would have been a whole lot better were it not for a terrible bogey-bogey finish.

1.15pm: Ernie Els has totally lost it. One over at the turn, he’s now seven over, his cause not helped by a triple-bogey six at 14 and a six at the 15th. There isn’t much in the way of good golf on display here today. That’s understandable, but it doesn’t stop it being very frustrating.

1.10pm: And it is. Straight in the middle of the cup. He’s +3, and no doubt ruing that double bogey at 10.

1.07pm: Monty clacks his tee shot at 12 to four feet. That surely has to be a birdie.

1.05pm: Choi nearly drained a 30-footer to birdie 14 but has to settle for par. Goosen birdies 17 to move to level par, while at the same hole Harrington moves the other way, missing a short putt and dropping a shot. He’s +3.

1pm: Mickelson is eight over par. His Open record is pitiful and it doesn’t look like getting any better this year. KJ Choi has just birdied 13 to move back up the leaderboard; he’s +1.

12.48pm: Goosen drops another shot at 16; he’s +1. The leaders now are Angel Cabrera and Paul Waring, who have played the sum total of four holes between them.

12.43pm: Monty takes three to get down from the front of the tenth, and slides back to +4. Which is where Rose ends his day, missing his birdie putt to the right of the hole but signing for a 74.

12.40pm: Justin Rose, who famously pitched in at the last here in 1998, nearly does so again, pitching to two feet. Spin takes the ball back to about ten feet from the cup, but that’s still a decent birdie opportunity. Rose is +4 and in pretty good shape, all things considered.

12.35pm: Monty saved his par at nine but is now struggling at 10, his third shot biting right at the front of the green and spinning back towards the fairway. Poulter, post shank, drops a shot at 11.

12.25pm: Goosen misses a putt on 15 even shorter than the one Casey missed a few minutes ago. He moves back to level par. Meanwhile halfway up the 11th fairway, Poulter suffers a proper full-on shank. That will make a nation of hackers feel a whole lot better about themselves.

12.20pm: On the ninth, for the 384,587th time in his career, Monty leaves a birdie attempt about six feet short. He’s +2 at the moment but now faces a tester to stay there.

12.15pm: Poulter is doing pretty well here; after his birdie at nine he sinks a testing par putt at 10 to remain at +1, two behind the leader Goosen.

12.10pm: Casey has missed a par putt at nine from less than 12 inches. He trudges off the green in a red-hot funk. And no wonder: that was spectacularly bad. Instead of tapping it into the centre - the line was dead straight - he whacked the ball at preposterous pace towards the left of the cup and it lipped out. He’s six over par at the turn.

12.05pm: “What’s the weather saying for the afternoon? Will people with a later tee-off have an advantage?” asks Mark Cruise. I have no way of knowing, so this will have to do… “It looks like it’s going to be the same for everyone all day,” smiles Brendan Jones, who is in the clubhouse at +4. He looks very pleased with himself, which is understandable. “If I lived in England I would not play golf for a living.”

12.02pm: Goosen rattles a 20-footer into the cup at 14 to move to one under; he’s the sole leader. Meanwhile the Guardian’s Mike Adamson is breaking all the rules up at Birkdale, in that he’s actually gone there to do some work and is not simply gadding around watching the golf. Here’s what he’s got to say:

It took four hours and 40 minutes, but the first rainswept group out is back. While Craig Parry, who hit the first shot of the day (and would hit another 78), went off to chat to the Beeb, a group of us caught up with Simon Dyson. “I played good,” he remarked. And that after a 12-over round of 82.

“It was my least enjoyable round ever,” he continued. “From the first hole to the last it was a battle just to get round. The par fours are unplayable without the tees going forward. At the 16th hole, I hit my best drive and my best three-wood - I was still short, which is ridiculous. At the 10th [where he carded a nine] I hit a decent drive but the wind took it into the rough. I had five swipes at it but just couldn’t get it out.”

Before you smirk at his misfortune and complain about his complaints, consider this remark from Dyson. “You could put a four-handicapper out there on that first tee and they’d shoot over 100.”

The soaked Englishman reserved some of his ire for the R&A. “It’s not the conditions so much, it’s the course. I can’t believe they didn’t put the tees forward. If it was the European Tour they would have done. There are only four holes downwind, so it’s not as if they’re testing you just on one or two into the wind. Lucas [Glover, his other playing partner who shot 80] didn’t do anything wrong for six holes yet still bogeyed five of them.

“It’s a one-off this. I don’t remember any day worse than this, but it’s the same for everyone. There will be some very high scores.” To give an indication of that, Dyson looked a little startled when asked if he would only be playing for pride tomorrow – he was obviously of the unsaid opinion that, despite his opening 82, there may still be more for him in this tournament than just pride.

11.58am: Erstwhile leader Shintaro Kai is now going backwards at a rate of knots; it’s now two bogeys in two holes. He’s one over. Meanwhile, anyone who loves golf but hates all the archaic nonsense that so often goes with it, should take a look at the excellent Secret Golf Society. The Costessey Park Sawn-Off Shotgun Start looks particularly good, as you swill from a can of Skol while playing.

11.52am: Harrington has just drained a brilliant ten-footer on 13 to save his par. He’s +2 and defending his title very well indeed. There seems to be no problem with his wrist at all.

11.50am: Jean van de Velde is out on the course! I love van de Velde, one of the Open’s true heroes, and here’s why. Shintaro Kai drops one at the fourth to move back into the pack at level par alongside Goosen, KJ Choi and Philip Archer.

11.47am: Goosen, level par, sends a beautiful iron into the heart of the 13th green. He’s playing superbly. Monty nearly makes his 25-foot par putt on seven… but doesn’t, moving back to +2.

11.45am: Ernie Els has just clacked two of the most hopeless putts I have ever seen on the tenth. He left the first one a good six feet short, then set the second out left, but it was never turning back; he drops back to +2. Monty sends his tee shot on 7 into thick rough on the right and does well to hack out over a bunker and onto the green. That looks like being a dropped shot.

11.35am: Shintaro Kai has parred the second and third; he’s still -1. Goosen makes his bird on 12 but Harrington has to settle for par. “At least we won’t have to listen to anyone moaning about what would have happened if Tiger was there,” suggests Richard Foxton. “The world number 1 is notoriously rubbish in the tough conditions that us Brits have to put up with every week. He would have missed the cut.”

11.30am: A couple of fantastic shots into the par-three 12th from Goosen, who hits the flagstick and ends ten feet from the pin, and Harrington, who pitches to six feet. Two decent birdie opportunities there. Not sure what was going on at the sixth, because Monty’s group, having been waved through by the Mickelson party, didn’t take up the offer. Monty’s just sent his approach to within a foot. That’s going to be a par on a hole which has been a complete nightmare for just about everyone. Monty is +1 and in a fantastic position if he can keep this up (and the weather doesn’t break).

11.20am: Harrington drops back to +2 after sending a relatively simple ten-foot putt on 11 right of the hole. He taps in for his bogey. Mickelson has just carded a triple-bogey seven at the sixth; he’s six over par. “Just thought I’d email to say how much I enjoyed the BBC’s build up show last night,” writes Matthew Amer. “The highlight was obviously when Lineker asked big Sam Torrance which non-British European he’d tip, to which the Scot replied he thought Westwood stood a good chance. It left Lineker floundering like a very fishy thing.” It doesn’t take much, does it.

11.15am: Phil Mickelson has sent his second shot into thick rough on the left at the sixth. He’s lost his ball. There are about 50 people looking for it, to no avail. Lefty trudges back up the fairway with the funk on. A sad sight. The group behind are waved through, much to Paul Casey’s displeasure. Everyone’s losing it.

SANDY LYLE LATEST: According to Mike Adamson, who is actually at the Open as opposed to sitting in front of a TV in Farringdon, the hacks in the press tent at Birkdale are moaning about the weather. Now there’s a surprise. “Sandy Lyle, a veteran of 33 Opens and who receives exemption having won the 1985 championship, prompted a few unkind jibes in the press tent when he said: ‘For me, with the glasses and waterproofs, I couldn’t get any momentum going at all so I thought it was best to call it a day.’ Of course, those jibes came from members of the press who are … hiding indoors from the rain. (That does include me obviously, but I’m about to head out again, honestly.) Indeed, one esteemed member of the golfing media fraternity was heard saying: ‘Next time somebody tells me I’ve got a great effing job, I’m going to smack them.’”

11.02am: “Monty’s looking solid,” reports bantersome BBC anchor Gary Lineker, two minutes after the player missed a tiddler for par. I miss Steve Rider.

11am: Mike Weir has just drained a 25-foot right-to-left putt on the fifth to move to level par. Monty has dropped a shot at the same hole, like you always knew etc etc.

10.51am: That is amazing. Westwood, four over after five, has a long bogey putt at the sixth. He places the ball, turns his back… and watches in horror as the wind blows it off the green down into the valley. Facing utter ruin, he bumps a chip - technically his bogey putt - up the hill and into the cup! He escapes with a bogey to drop to +5, but that will feel like a shot gained. Almost.

10.50am: Shintaro Kai has birdied the first to lead the Open. David Duval is only one over after two!

10.42am: MONTY IS LEADING THE OPEN!!! He’s made that putt. You know how this is going to end, if not on day four then in about 25 minutes, so let’s just enjoy it while we can.

10.41am: Poulter has drained his putt at five to move back to level par. He’s leading the tournament alongside Choi and a couple of goons who have only played one hole and will have to do more than that to impress anyone around here.

10.40am: Monty has a birdie putt at three, having sent his second deliciously scampering to six feet. If you don’t hear any more about this, assume he’s missed.

10.35am: Shot of the day so far by Ian Pouter, who is one over but has given himself a wonderful birdie chance at five by clipping his approach to five feet. Hold on, scrub that, Retief Goosen has just sent his second into the ninth to about six inches. That was nearly an eagle. What a shot.

10.30am: Choi moves back to level par after a wayward drive at five ends with a dropped shot. No triple bypasses to report yet, though John Quinn’s dad, Des, the club captain at the Mourne Golf Club in Newcastle Co Down, recently fell into a bunker and broke his hip. “I guess its not a triple bypass,” admits John, “but he nearly needed a hip replacement.”

10.20am: Ernie Els lines up a 15-foot par putt on the sixth but pulls away as the wind starts blowing the ball about. This is ridiculous. After a while he’s able to take a whack; he gets the ball to within a foot. There’s no way he’ll miss that. I can’t wait to see Sergio putt in these conditions. Harrington has birdied the eighth to move back to +1. Good work Padraig.

10.18am: “Why oh why all this coverage of Sandy Lyle when we can be focusing on Simon Dyson?” asks Allan Knox, doing my job for me, which is just as well. “He’s had a nine on the 10th or was it a ten on the 9th?” Lee Westwood meanwhile is four over after five, but has given himself half a chance of a birdie at six, clipping a wedge to 15 feet. Watson’s par putt at nine trembles on the lip but doesn’t fall. He’s back to two over at the turn. There’s a whole lot of misery going on.

SANDY LYLE. It was Muirfield in 87. “The round would have put him right in contention except that he played in the morning,” explains Stuart Mackenzie. “The weather eased in the afternoon and the leaders had a much easier time of it.” Monty has dropped one at the second, like you always knew he would.

10.10am: Peter Alliss has just given the first of this tournament’s Big Shouts Out To A Club Captain Who’s Just Had A Triple Heart Bypass. KJ Choi has just birdied the fourth to go ONE UNDER PAR. He leads the Open. Are you a club captain who’s just had a triple heart bypass? Anything Alliss can do, we should easily be able to match.

10.05am: Lyle wasn’t in a funk, he insists. “I rattled my fingers on the fourth,” explains the 1985 champ, although he did also go on to moan about his glasses steaming up a bit in the rain. Oh Sandy!

10.02am: Watson has just birdied the 8th to go back to +1. Meanwhile I’ve just heard the back end of a conversation between Peter Alliss and Ken Brown, which ended with Brown pondering “I wonder if you’d fail a drug test on WD40?”

10.01am: Or was it Muirfield in 87? I can’t remember.

10am: There is still no player over par. Of the men out, only Henrik Stenson, Hunter Mahan, Ernie Els, KJ Choi, Ian Poulter and Paul Casey are level, and none of them have played more than five holes. FUNKWATCH: Sandy Lyle has walked off the course after taking a seven at the par-four 9th! Eh? He managed to get round Turnberry in level par during a tempest in 1986; this is mere drizzle in comparison. Oh Sandy!

9.51 am: This weather is abysmal. Lee Westwood has dropped three strokes over the first two holes. Ben Curtis, the 2003 champion, is about +74 over after three holes. Monty, meanwhile, has scrambled a fantastic par on the first after draining a 20-footer. Could this be his year? No. No it couldn’t.

9.45am: Casey has just flayed his tee shot at the second into the thickest rough on the course. Good luck with that. Meanwhile Monty is out: he’s taken three strokes to reach the first green after finding a fairway bunker with his opening shot. Everyone appears to be having minor nervous breakdowns in the beautiful wind and rain - it’s beautiful because this is what links golf is all about - so this could be an interesting day.

9.40pm: WRISTWATCH. Harrington has just powered a shot out of the thick stuff at 6. No reaction.

9.37am: I’ve got the funk on, right here. Look what’s happened to Sandy Lyle: 5 4 4 4 4 5 5 6. He’s seven over after eight! BAH. Watson has bogeyed six and is no longer leading the Open. GAH. The conditions at Birkdale are preposterous. Paul Casey has started out with a solid par, but his playing partner Phil Mickelson bogeys.

9.30am: Tom Watson is leading the Open. Justin Rose, the patronised youngster of 1998 fame, is not, however. He’s three over after six. Defending champions Padraig Harrington is playing, by the way; he’s +1 after five and walking around ostentatiously holding that wrist. We’re just easing into this slowly, by the way, just in case you can’t guess; we should have some sort of momentum going by the time Jonathan Lomas, Yoshinobu Tsukada and Peter Appleyard tee off.

A good morning to one and all. It’s like 1977 right here, right now: Tom Watson (level) is leading the Open. That’s as far as the comparison runs, though; unlike sun-drenched Turnberry, it’s blowing a gale and tipping it down at Birkdale. Still, I’ll say it as many times as I possibly can, when I can: Tom Watson is leading the Open. Come on Tom.

About this articleCloseThis article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Thursday July 17 2008. It was last updated at 14:58 on July 17 2008.

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