All we needed was for boomerangs to start twirling though the fescue grasses, for kangaroos to bound out of bunkers, and for a billabong to materialise in the tented village.

Yesterday, when a mere zephyr caressed the links, the Australians staged a quietly effective takeover of Baltray, with two players still without a PGA European Tour win, but both extremely accomplished in the art of getting the ball into the hole in as few strokes as possible, grabbing a share of the first-round lead in the Nissan Irish Open.

Peter Lonard, whose arrival here was delayed until late Wednesday evening because he had opted to undergo corrective laser surgery in London - and so played the course, um, blind, as it were - and Nick O'Hern each shot an opening round of eight-under-par 64 to lead the birdie-fest, which saw no fewer than 73 players dip under par.

It was a day, suggested Sandy Lyle, that was "golfer friendly". Very friendly, in fact, for Jose Manuel Carriles, whose hole-in-one on the 15th won him a Nissan Murano 4x4 valued at €63,000.

The cruelty of golf, though, was highlighted by the plight of his compatriot Santiago Luna, who aced the fifth hole and got absolutely nothing for his troubles. As they say, timing is everything.

But it was also a day that mainly rekindled what past Irish Opens were all about, "ice cream days", as Padraig Harrington called them in the build-up to this first staging of the tournament on this worthy links.

However, the many thousands who trampled the dunes - particularly the large galleries that followed Darren Clarke and Harrington, the leading world-ranked players in the field - were given only occasional moments to cherish, as both returned opening rounds of 70.

For Harrington, it was a strange old day. As he walked down the sixth fairway, with his ball in the right rough, he turned to his caddie, Ronan Flood, and remarked, "That's great, we've got the easy holes out of the way."

At the time, he was two over par and, in his own words, "frazzled, from too much practice". Indeed, as if to emphasise Harrington's state of mind at the time, he hit five chip shots on the first five holes and got up-and-down only once.

Still, Harrington, who has added next week's Scandinavian Masters onto his schedule so that he does not go into the US PGA without sufficient tournament play, rescued his round with an eagle on the 18th, finally giving the crowds something to cheer. With 260 yards to the pin, he held a three-wood approach beautifully into the wind and finished 12 feet beyond the hole. For once, his putter weaved its magic and the downhill putt rolled in.

Afterwards, the Dubliner conceded that his "frazzled" state was due to overworking in practice, not because it was the Irish Open but "because I needed to. It's a double-edged sword because the worse your wedge play gets is when you're working on your swing. At least I knuckled down after five holes and got my swing back. Now, I need to hit my wedges better and hole a few putts."

Clarke, too, was upbeat about chasing the six-shot deficit over the two leaders.

"It's a decent start," he opined. "I'd so many really good putts that burned the edges and didn't go in . . . I struggled to read the lines on the greens. I'd put this links right at the very top of links courses, and I've had a lot of good times here. If I keep playing like this, hopefully I'll have another one at the end of the week. If you get on a roll, you can keep making birdies."

Nobody cashed in on the benign conditions as well as Lonard and O'Hern, who finished the day two shots clear of a trio that included another Australian, Brett Rumford, England's Simon Wakefield and Scotland's Stephen Gallacher.

O'Hern was disappointed not to have obtained a place in last week's British Open at Royal Troon. "I love links golf where you have to think your way around and shape your shots, to hit lots of fades and draws and produce the whole bag of tricks," he remarked.

Still, the attraction of Baltray - and yesterday's performance - soothed any lingering angst and he produced a round that contained an eagle, seven birdies and a solitary bogey.

Remarkably, Lonard's round produced identical scoring statistics, yet his performance was all the more notable in that he only pitched up in Baltray on Wednesday evening, where he met his caddie outside the local bar, was handed a course guide and proceeded to walk only nine holes - what turned out to be his back nine - in an effort to familiarise himself with the links.

The reason for Lonard's late arrival was because he had to attend his eye surgeon in London. The Australian suffered a mosquito-related illness called Ross River fever a few years ago that affected his eyes and eventually necessitated lasik surgery.

"I had it done in 1997 or 1998 and, living in the US, I very rarely had the time to visit the eye hospital until I got a late appointment yesterday," he said.

"I phoned them on Monday on the off chance they could see me, as I thought something was not quite right. My right eye seemed to be not as good as it was and it had deteriorated, but not as much as I thought. It was 50-50 if I could play here, but there were no complications. I could read the lines fantastic."

Just now, though, the finishing line is not in sight. Only a quarter of the job has been completed, and you can bet Baltray, at some stage, will get the chance to bare its teeth.