Colin Montgomerie recovered from a nightmare start to post an opening level par 71 at The 145th Open Championship.
Royal Troon is the Scot's home course and Montgomerie had to come through qualifying to play in what will be his final Open Championship on the Ayrshire coast.
The eight-time Order of Merit winner was given the honour of hitting the opening tee-shot on Thursday morning and admitted to some nerves as he stood on the first tee with playing partners Luke Donald and Marc Leishman.
Those nerves were on show as the 53 year old hit his second shot into a bunker and needed two attempts to get out before recording an opening double-bogey. He recovered with five birdies in seven holes from the third and despite three bogeys on the back nine, he was pleased with his opening effort.
"The best shot I hit, probably one of the best shots of my life, was the fourth shot out of the bunker in the first, away from the hole," he said.
"Amazing how that ball came out. No one in the field would have gotten the first ball out of there. It was buried right in the face of the bunker. And the second one fell into a footprint, and my footprint is deeper than most, so that was no good. And then I hit a great shot to get it out of the bunker, and then a good up-and-down for six, then did well.
"Five birdies in the next eight holes was good, very good. There are opportunities but you've got to take them and I managed to do that with two par fives, having laid up both of them and made birdies on both on four and six, and to go to eight and nine was super as well.
"I was three under on the front nine and three over on the back nine and that's par for both. Par is three under on the way out and par is three over on the way back and that's why I'm 71 here - level par."
Montgomerie's father James is a former secretary at Troon and the 31-time European Tour winner was thrilled to have the honour of hitting the opening shot.
It's a great honour, a great honour. We spoke to the R&A about that. An honour for all three of us, Marc Leishman and Luke Donald as well. It was a great atmosphere on the first tee - Colin Montgomerie
"I sort of dug deep into the Ryder Cup ways, where I'd led off the tee twice in the singles, led off the tee three or four times in the fourballs. So it was that type of feeling."
