As starts go, it was the stuff of nightmares. At precisely 7.03 a.m., Rich Beem, the first of his three-ball to play, boomed his drive down the first fairway to be followed by Australian Brendan Jones and, finally, by Paul McGinley, who was so pumped up with adrenalin he drove the ball to within five yards of the green all of 370 yards away.

McGinley's second shot was a chip, over a bunker, to four feet. As you do, he marked the ball, gave it to his caddie Darren Reynolds to clean and replaced the ball for his birdie attempt. Then it happened. As he brought his putter back, the ball moved.

"I hit it out of the heel of the putter it moved so much," recalled McGinley, who immediately called a shot on himself, resulting in an opening bogey five. "Nobody else saw it move, but there was no question of not calling the shot," he insisted.

On such integrity is the game of golf based, and McGinley - who estimated he has called shots on himself "probably three or four times" in his career - promptly informed the rules official accompanying the group of what had happened. "Of all the places for it to happen, in the British Open. It did my head in, it was a real shock to the system," he explained.

Rather than have a negative impact on McGinley, though, the incident brought the best out of the Dubliner, who recovered to open his championship with a two-under-par 69. Indeed, he bounced back immediately. He birdied the second, where he hit a nine-iron approach to 15 feet, and was so fired up that he drove the third green - a drive of 379 yards - and two-putted from 25 feet for another birdie.

Thereafter, he switched into robotic mode and had 12 successive pars - hitting every green in regulation - before, on the 16th hole, he rediscovered his birdie touch. On the par five, he hit a two-iron off the tee to stay short of the burn that crosses the fairway around the 280 yards mark, then hit a five-iron lay-up to 79 yards from the green and pitched to seven feet.

Sensible, patient golf.

"I'm really happy to have recovered from that start. The British Open is the greatest tournament in the world. To me, it's such a big deal to play in it. It has the tradition, the aura, the name. It has everything," said McGinley.

Yesterday's round equalled his best starts - he opened with 69s at Royal Lytham & St Annes in 1996 and 2001 and at St Andrews in 2000 - but the job, as he knows, is only a quarter complete.

While McGinley's first round brought a good deal of satisfaction, it was a day best forgotten by Padraig Harrington who struggled to a 76 that was blighted by a triple-bogey seven on the 11th where his tee-shot finished in a bush and, after taking a penalty drop for an unplayable lie, he then put his next shot into even bigger bushes, played a provisional ball to the green, which he opted to use, and took two putts.

"When I hit a bad shot, I seemed to pay the penalty," said Harrington, who also admitted that he had "definitely no chance" of winning after such an opening round.

"I'd like to have played a bit better. I wasn't playing 100 per cent, so I needed a few breaks and they weren't forthcoming. I didn't have that much confidence coming in. It's a tough golf course when you're not feeling too good and not firing at the pins."

Harrington's start of nine straight pars hardly hinted at the turmoil that was to come at the start of the back nine journey and, ironically, he started to create chances over the final holes, only to see a birdie chance on the 15th horse-shoe out and another birdie putt on the 17th graze the hole. As if to rub salt into old wounds, Harrington's three-wood off the 18th tee finished in a fairway bunker and he could only splash out sideways. "I got no return at all coming in, and that's more disappointing than the triple bogey," he said.

While Harrington claimed the neck strain had cleared up, he admitted his swing was "a little bit out of kilter" because of the injury which hampered him for the past week.

"It's golf, and you can't always have things the way you want them . . . some days you feel like you're playing great and you don't do anything, and on other days you feel terrible and score great. You just have to be patient, there's nothing more to it."