GOLF/133rd British Open:  The beauty of links golf is that, even on what the locals consider to be a calm day, and the title of the club history - The Breezy Links o'Troon - adequately conveys how the wind blows more often than not on this exposed Ayrshire coast, there is the propensity for the course to give with one hand and take with the other. Philip Reid reports from Troon

And, unfortunately for Darren Clarke, he was one of yesterday's victims in the first round of 133rd British Open here.

For much of his day, Clarke played elegant golf to match his elegant wardrobe. Then, on the 18th, an error of judgment tarnished things - but, with another 54 holes to go, not terminally.

Needing a birdie to join clubhouse leaders Paul Casey and Thomas Levet on five-under-par 69, and with 191 yards to the flag in a crosswind, Clarke hit a five-iron, only to watch - with a stunned expression - as the ball sailed over the flag and over the green to land in the gravel path in front of the clubhouse - out-of-bounds.

Left with no option other than to drop a new ball on the same spot, Clarke switched to a six-iron and put his approach to 15 feet short of the hole, from where he two-putted for a double bogey six and a round of 69 that deserved to be so much better.

"I've come close to playing well for quite some time," Clarke said. "Today I made some mistakes, as everybody does, and I recovered from them. It's just disappointing what happened on the last. I didn't hit that bad a shot, I just got the wind wrong.

"Hindsight is easy, it was the wrong club."

Although Clarke didn't apportion blame, his caddie Pete Coleman took it.

"I gave him the club, it's my fault," remarked Coleman. "He asked me what club, and I told him."

Still, there were many positives for Clarke to take away from a round in which, finally, his putter behaved.

His hot stretch came from the sixth, where he holed a 10-footer to spark a run of three successive birdies, and he moved to four-under when he holed from 30 feet on the 10th.

Despite dropping a shot on the 13th, when his flop shot didn't make the green, he recovered with a tap-in birdie on the 16th, only for his finish to take away some of the gloss.

"This is one of the Open venues that I really like. I'm hitting the ball well, and I can see the lines on the greens. I'd have settled for a 69 going out, but it was disappointing to throw away two shots on the last hole," reflected Clarke.

On a day when the links was caressed by only a gentle breeze, the anticipated American challenge - on a course where they've won the last five British Opens held here - didn't materialise. Indeed, by day's end, it was the first time since 1959 that no American featured in the top-10 of the leaderboard.

Meanwhile, Ernie Els - like Clarke - could rue the fickleness of the links. After holing out with his tee-shot on the Postage Stamp, the eighth hole, where his caddie, Ricky Roberts, insisted he hit a wedge rather than a nine-iron, the South African suffered a double-bogey five on the 17th where he took two shots to escape a greenside bunker.

"It wasn't the most difficult shot I've ever had in my life. I just messed it up. I thinned it into the bank in front of me," said Els who, like Clarke, signed for a 69 that could have been better.

Els' ace at the eighth emulated the feat of 71-year-old Gene Sarazen in the 1973 championship.

"Me and Gene Sarazen. I don't know what he played, probably a five-iron," said Els. It was indeed.

Yet, while the scoring was generally good, and 39 players submitted sub-par rounds, there was trouble to be found. This was especially true of the 11th, a hole known simply as The Railway. It played the toughest of all and it proved particularly costly for Padraig Harrington - "I've definitely no chance," he later remarked - who took a seven on his way to an opening 76, a score later handed in by Irish Close champion Brian McElhinney.

Killarney's Danny Sugrue, who double bogeyed the 11th, could be reasonably happy to have shot a 74.

Harrington wasn't the only European big gun to misfire. Sergio Garcia, who went into the championship as the only player with top-10 finishes in the last three British Opens, had a 75.

"What happened to me a couple of times was that I hit good tee-shots and got a bad bounce and ended up with tricky lies. You don't know if the ball is going to fly, or come out normally. If you don't guess right, it makes a big difference," said Garcia.

For the four holders of major titles, it also proved to be a frustrating day. Retief Goosen, the US Open champion, shot a 69 but immediately headed to the range to work on his set-up.

"I didn't hit the ball well, but scrambled well," said Goosen. And Shaun Micheel, the US PGA champion, had a 70. But Phil Mickelson, the US Masters champion, struggled to a 73 and defending champion Ben Curtis languished to a 75.

"My game plan was not overly aggressive," Mickelson said. "The front nine is where you have to attack and I didn't start off the first couple holes hitting very solid shots.

"I was struggling for pars, but you have to get to two or three under par on that front nine. Coming home is a lot more difficult, and I played it in two over."

Tiger Woods, who has gone eight majors without a win, a long stretch by his standards, believed his opening round 70 kept him in contention.

"It's a positive start, and hopefully I can continue," said the world's number one. "I hit a lot of good shots and controlled my ball really well today."

But the men they're chasing know that the hunt is on.

"It's a question of staying patient and just relaxing on the golf course," said Levet, who booked his place in the field in last-gasp fashion by winning last week's Scottish Open. Two years ago he was beaten in a play-off for the Open at Muirfield.

"You learn from those experiences."

We'll see how much over the next three days.