The Open: Jordan Spieth opens with 72, other early round highlights

The Open Championship is underway and defending champion Jordan Spieth opened with a 72, six shots back of the lead. Here’s a few early highlights from Carnoustie.

It was admittedly a little difficult for Jordan Spieth to give back the Claret Jug ahead of The Open Championship and after getting off to a nice start at Carnoustie, things got a little difficult for the three-time major champion coming in. Let’s take a quick look at Spieth’s day and some other highlights from some of the early action at The Open.

Spieth began his defense of The Open Championship with a par at the short, par-4 opening hole but got to red numbers rather quickly with a birdie at the 461-yard, par-4 2nd hole.

Spieth would card another birdie two holes later to get to 2-under for the tournament. Following pars at the next three holes, he found a little trouble at the par-3 8th hole, yanking his tee shot a bit to the left. With a very tricky bunker in front of him, Jordan played a brilliant second shot, choosing to take an aggressive line with the putter towards the hazard. Up and over it went, getting much closer than anyone would have thought possible and was able to salvage a three. Good stuff.

After going out in 34, Spieth added a third birdie at the par-4 11th to get to 3-under for the day, where he would stay until finding lots of trouble on the last four holes, arguably the toughest finishing stretch in all of golf. He found bunker trouble (it’s hard not to at some point with 112 of them at Carnoustie) at the par-4 15th on his way to a double-bogey and dropped back to even with a bogey at the 16th. Following a par at 17, Spieth got aggressive at the home hole, hitting his drive right into Barry Burn but was able to scramble nicely for a bogey to shoot a 1-over 72, currently six shots back of the lead.

As for others on the course, the best round early on belonged to Kevin Kisner, who was 1-over after five holes but fired off an eagle and four birdies, including three consecutive from 13 to 15, to shoot 66.

South African Erik Van Rooyen was right behind Kisner with a 4-under round of 67 and Tony Finau is also playing very well at 3-under through 14 holes. Ryan Moore is right there with Finau, making five birdies and two bogeys on his opening nine.

Early “shot of the day” honors go to Kiradech Aphibarnrat at the 17th, a hole that had yet to yield a birdie on the day. He played the whole a little differently than some would but came ahead with the best result.

World number one Dustin Johnson and Rory McIlroy are both sitting at even early in their rounds and three-time Open champ Tiger Woods is just getting going at Carnoustie. The golf course is playing very fast and there are plenty of problems out there to be had. But at the same time, there are opportunities out there to make birdies. As it always is with The Open, things should continue to be interesting as we move along.

Next: 10 best moments in the history of The Open

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