Tiger Woods endured a miserable return to the Open Championship as the three-time champion laboured to a six-over-par 78 at St Andrews on Thursday to leave his chances of making the cut looking slim.
On a course where he has lifted the Claret Jug twice before, Woods' first appearance at a British Open since 2019 had been highly anticipated.
But the 15-time major winner's round never recovered from a double-bogey at the first after a poor approach shot found the water.
Woods missed the Open last year due to a car crash in February 2021 that left him requiring major surgery to his right leg.
The physical effects of that accident were evident as he hobbled around the course in a round lasting over six hours on a day marred by slow play.
"It was a long, slow day," said Woods.
"This was always on the calendar to hopefully be well enough to play it, and I am, I just didn't do a very good job of it."
Collated first round scores in the 150th Open on the Old Course at St Andrews on Thursday (GBR/IRL unless stated; Par 72):
64 - Cameron Young (USA)
66 - Rory McIlroy
67 - Robert Dinwiddie, Cameron Smith (AUS)
68 - Barclay Brown, Talor Gooch (USA), Viktor Hovland (NOR), Dustin Johnson (USA), Brad Kennedy (AUS), Scottie Scheffler (USA), Lee Westwood, Kurt Kitayama (USA)
69 - Bryson DeChambeau (USA), Padraig Harrington, Kim Joo-Hyung (KOR), Kim Si-Woo (KOR), Thriston Lawrence (RSA), Lee Kyoung-Hoon (KOR), Lee Min-Woo (AUS), Joaquin Niemann (CHI), John Parry, Ian Poulter, Xander Schauffele (USA), Sahith Theegala (USA), Scott Vincent (ZIM), Danny Willett
70 - Patrick Cantlay (USA), Thomas Detry (BEL), Ernie Els (RSA), Dylan Frittelli (RSA), Tyrrell Hatton, Russell Henley (USA), Lucas Herbert (AUS), Robert MacIntyre
71 - Abraham Ancer (MEX), Marcus Armitage, Dean Burmester (RSA), Paul Casey, Wyndham Clark (USA), Corey Conners (CAN), Justin de Los Santos (USA), Matt Ford, Ryan Fox (NZL), Im Sung-Jae (KOR), Sadom Kaewkanjana (THA), Yuto Katsuragawa (JPN), Hideki Matsuyama (JPN), Louis Oosthuizen (RSA), Victor Perez (FRA), Webb Simpson (USA), Jordan Spieth (USA), Cameron Tringale (USA), Trey Mullinax (USA), Brandon Wu (USA)
72 - Sam Bairstow, Sam Burns (USA), Laurie Canter, David Carey, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Tommy Fleetwood, Garrick Higgo (RSA), Zach Johnson (USA), Jason Kokrak (USA), David Law, Shane Lowry, Phil Mickelson (USA), Collin Morikawa (USA), Kevin Na (USA), Keita Nakajima (JPN), Patrick Reed (USA), Adam Scott (AUS), Jason Scrivener (AUS), Justin Thomas (USA), Bernd Wiesberger (AUT), Aaron Wise (USA), Fabrizio Zanotti (PAR)
73 - Christiaan Bezuidenhout (RSA), John Daly (USA), Tony Finau (USA), Brian Harman (USA), Kazuki Higa (JPN), Nicolai Hoejgaard (DEN), Max Homa (USA), Billy Horschel (USA), Mackenzie Hughes (CAN), Kim Min-Kyu (KOR), Brooks Koepka (USA), Li Haotong (CHN), Richard Mansell, Guido Migliozzi (ITA), Francesco Molinari (ITA), Ronan Mullarney, Sebastian Munoz (COL), J. T. Poston (USA), Seamus Power, Jon Rahm (ESP), Jamie Rutherford, Jordan Smith, Harold Varner III (USA), Will Zalatoris (USA)
74 - Adri Arnaus (ESP), Ben Campbell (NZL), John Catlin (USA), Filippo Celli (ITA), Jorge Fernandez Valdes (ARG), Matthew Griffin (AUS), Justin Harding (RSA), Tom Hoge (USA), Matthew Jordan, Takumi Kanaya (JPN), Chan Kim (USA), Kevin Kisner (USA), Paul Lawrie, Shaun Norris (RSA), Aldrich Potgieter (RSA), Anthony Quayle (AUS), Lars van Meijel (NED), Gary Woodland (USA)
75 - Alexander Bjoerk (SWE), Ashley Chesters, Cho Min-Gyu (KOR), Jack Floydd, Sergio Garcia (ESP), Aaron Jarvis (CAY), Chris Kirk (USA), Pablo Larrazabal (ESP), Adrian Meronk (POL), Guillermo Mito Pereira (CHI), Thomas Pieters (BEL), Henrik Stenson (SWE), Rikuya Hoshino (JPN), Aaron Rai
76 - Keegan Bradley (USA), Harris English (USA), Oliver Farr, Sam Horsfield, Kim Svn-Hwan (USA), Marc Leishman (AUS), Luke List (USA), Keith Mitchell (USA), Marco Penge, Jamie Donaldson
77 - Stephen Dodd, Zander Lombard (RSA), Dimitrios Papadatos (AUS)
78 - Richard Bland, Stewart Cink (USA), Emiliano Grillo (ARG), Tiger Woods (USA)
79 - Darren Clarke, Jediah Morgan (AUS)
80 - Shugo Imahira (JPN)
81 - Sepp Straka (AUT)
82 - David Duval (USA), Alex Wrigley
83 - Mark Calcavecchia (USA)
Note: South Africa's Erik van Rooyen pulled out due to a neck injury.
Another double-bogey plusdropped shots at the third and fourth left the 46-year-old six-over throughseven holes.
There were sparks of theold Woods in back-to-back birdies on the ninth and 10th to the delight of hugegalleries following the American's every shot.
However, bogeys at 11, 13and 16 on the back nine left him 14 shots behind leader Cameron Young after dayone.
The top 70 players and tiesmake the cut after two rounds.
Only seven in the fieldshot a worse score than Woods in the first round, leaving one of the game'sall-time greats down in 146th and needing a drastic turnaround on Friday toextend his tournament into the weekend.
"Looks like I'm goingto have to shoot 66 tomorrow to have a chance," added Woods.
"Obviously, it hasbeen done, guys did it today. That's my responsibility tomorrow is to go aheadand do it. I need to do it."
Thursday's score equalledWoods' worst opening-round score in 22 starts at the event which came at hismost recent appearance at Portrush in 2019.
"Looking at it at thebeginning of the year, end of last year, when I was rehabbing, trying to see ifI could do it, somehow I was able to play two of the major championships inbetween then and now, which was great," added Woods.
