Spieth, Koepka, Kuchar lead American charge at British Open

“It wasn’t I couldn’t look within myself”, McIlroy stated. I don’t know if we’d be in any better score if I was on the other side of the draw. With the way he’s played this summer, he could totally make a charge in the final 36 holes.

Handed the honour of hitting the first shot of the tournament, O’Meara sent his drive out of bounds before running up a quadruple-bogey eight and he ended up signing for an ugly round of 81. “So overall, I am about where my game deserves it to be”.

Poulter, looking to become the first man since Paul Lawrie 18 years ago to come through qualifying and win the claret jug, mixed three birdies with three bogeys in his first 11 holes. That was two ahead of Matt Kuchar, who with an early tee time was one of those Spieth watched on TV.

“Off the tee you’re trying to avoid all the bunkers or if it’s got a lot of bunkers, you’re just trying to put one of them in play”.

After a lovely day that made for ideal scoring conditions, some weather is moving into the British Open.

Zach Johnson, who won the 2015 Open at St. Andrews where Spieth missed a playoff by a shot, is at 141 after a day’s-best 66. His caddie JP Fitzgerald must have been tempted to issue another of his rollickings, alongside the now celebrated one on the sixth tee on Thursday that has already entered caddy-lore: ‘You’re Rory McIlroy, what the f**k are you doing?’

The Northern Irishman had bogeyed five of those holes on Thursday before recovering to end the opening day on one over-par, and he was able to carry his good work into his second round. Now he sits tied for 7th, having shot a 68 on Friday.

Another had been available at the exposed par-three 12th, where he said he started the ball 30 yards to the left of the green and above the crowd and saw it hit the putting surface and finish 12ft away only after deviating right in the last 20 yards of its flight. “The back nine is playing really, really hard”, he said.

In an extraordinary few hours he made birdies on the first, fourth, fifth, eighth, ninth, 14th, 16th and 17th holes, which left him requiring just a oar on the par-four 18th to set the record. I made some key up-and-downs on the start of the back nine. “But I made a nice start with the birdie at three and I didn’t have too much stress in the round”. And it just, one hop, scooted around the group of bunkers there, and then it was obviously fortunate to get all the way to the green and keep on going towards the green instead of over towards the left bunker. “It was almost the opposite wind of what we had yesterday”. This course has a lot of crosswinds, so it’s tough to judge how far the ball is going to fly depending on what shot you play. Holes that were hybrid, sand wedge were kind of driver, 4-iron today.

But Spieth is where we got used to seeing him.

Dustin Johnson of the United States prepares to putt on the 14th green during the third round of the British Open Golf Championship, at Royal Birkdale, Southport, England, Saturday July 22, 2017. He had taken a month off heading into this tournament.

Former winners Padraig Harrington, Louis Oosthuizen and Phil Mickelson all missed the cut.

“Fortunately for me I didn’t”.

T5. Hideki Matsuyama (-4): The list of players to take seriously as a threat to Spieth or Kuchar is short, but Matusyama is absolutely on that list.

There are still two rounds to go.