England's Danny Willett admits his experience of winning the English Amateur Championship at Royal St George's could not really prepare him for his Open debut.
The 23-year-old from Yorkshire was victorious over the Royal St George's links at Sandwich in 2007 on his way to playing in the Walker Cup and becoming the world's number one-ranked amateur before turning professional a year later.
However, while his past success on this course gave him confidence his victory of four years ago counted for little at the biggest event of his life.
"I have not been nervous all week. I've been hitting the ball nicely but there is something different when they start announcing the names," said Willett after shooting a one-under 69 in the first group out at 6.30am.
"Regardless of how much you do or don't want it, you get butterflies in there and you start shaking a bit.
"But I hit it all right luckily. Usually I think I would have got more annoyed because most weeks on tour you need to be shooting four or five under par but knowing that [anyone] walking off at level par at the end of the day at The Open is going to be pretty good.
"Set-up wise it's a little tougher (from when he played in the Amateur Championship).
"It's in as good a condition as they can probably make it for this week, the biggest week of the year but the one thing that is different is I can never remember playing it in this wind.
"Luckily it's been this wind all week so we've kind of adjusted and got used to hitting those shots down the first few holes but overall it's a great test of golf."
