Severiano Ballesteros took 87, Mark James and Mats Lanner 84 and the Open champion Paul Lawrie was one of scores of professionals who could not break 80 yesterday in the first round of the Benson & Hedges International.
It was a brutal day at the Belfry. When the wind is from the east, as it was yesterday, there is not much between the Urals and Sutton Coldfield to stop it, and it was both briskly breezy and bitterly cold.
The scores showed it. The average, from Europe's finest, was 77.42, nearly five over par, which meant that players like Lee Westwood and Ian Woosnam, both on 77, were better than they thought, and Colin Montgomerie, on 76, could be said to be well in contention.
The players who fared best were those, such as Phillip Price, who were, in his words, "prepared to grind".
The Welshman leads on three-under 69, one ahead of Thomas Gogele and Jean van de Velde who, having coped with Carnoustie last year - for 71 holes anyway - clearly relishes tough challenges.
Padraig Harrington was best of the Irish finishing with a one-under 71 after a bad start. Paul McGinley was two shots further back on one over.
Eammon Darcy and Gary Murphy ended the day at three over and four over respectively. Darren Clarke and Des Smyth both shot six-over 78s, with Ronan Rafferty and Phillip Walton another shot back.
Only eight players in the 156man field broke par, among them the Australian amateur Adam Scott, who claimed that he had experienced "conditions like today" because he grew up at Hope Island in Queensland. The course there is a replica of the Scottish links though it is normally much warmer.
But if it was cold on the course, it was frosty off it. Van de Velde was distinctly miffed when Mark James, captain of the last Ryder Cup team, did not play him until the obligatory singles on the last day and has since campaigned for it to be made mandatory for all members of the team to play in the course of the foursomes and fourball matches.
"If you qualify for the team, if you are not a captain's pick, you have earned your right to play and not just in the singles. To have a captain deciding, `I don't like him, he's not good enough' - I don't think that's the purpose of it. I think we need to review the role of captaincy."
Van de Velde used a soccer analogy about the captaincy, saying that in football "the captain is not making the selection". Torrance dismissed that.
"Solksjaer sits on the bench more than he plays on the pitch but you don't hear him complaining. He's part of a team.
"There's 12 in the Ryder Cup team. Eight play on the first two days, four people have to miss out on four rounds and those days are about the captain's selections and getting some points on the board."
So was there a rift between Torrance and Van de Velde? Torrance said not. "He may part of our team again. I've got to look after him, make him feel at home - like I thought we did the last time."
