By Simon Lewis
St Andrews
Irish amateur Paul Dunne had such an early start to the Open Championship his only hope was someone was watching to take notice of his excellent opening round at St Andrews on Thursday morning.
Dunne, 22 and from Greystones, took advantage of the benign conditions on the Old Course as he teed off at 6:43am and shot a first-round, three-under-par 69 to make his mark on the leaderboard of the third major of the year.
The University of Alabama-Birmingham golfer, who qualified for The Open for the second year in a row, even shared the lead after he birdied the first two holes to get off to a flying start in just the second group of the day and his status as an early joint leader had Dunne admitting: “My first thought was is anyone at home going to take a picture of it on the computer screen and send it to me later?
Amateur, Paul Dunne shares top spot on the early leaderboard. Keep up to date here: http://t.co/GXoKkgApkd pic.twitter.com/wwstjKiViG
— The Open (@TheOpen) July 16, 2015
“It was only two holes in and so many people are going to birdie the first two so… I went out with a number in my head trying to shoot 68. I thought four under would be a good score out there, so I came up just short. But I’m pretty pleased with a 69.”
Dunne carded four birdies and one bogey in the company of former Open champion Todd Hamilton and another American, James Hahn, outscoring them both in front of a large group of friends and family who had travelled from Greystones.
“It was an early start but I got off to a nice start. I was really nervous on the first tee but once I got off the tee I felt quite comfortable and it was nice to birdie the first two holes and get the round off and running.
“As the day went on it was disappointing to bogey 11. I went out with the idea that if you make no bogeys, I’d shoot a good score so that was a little disappointing but apart from that the day went well.”