After Open Championship’s first round, 1 word was on everyone’s lips

Tyrrell Hatton walked off the course at Royal Portrush on Thursday after shooting a three-under 68 to open the 153rd Open Championship. Besides a number of burned edges, it was a fine round by the Englishman, who is coming off a near-miss at the 2025 U.S. Open at Oakmont, on a Northern Irish track that threw its fastball and some off-speed pitches at the world’s best on Thursday.

How did Hatton, who spent the afternoon barking at the greens and gesturing to his caddie, find the opening round of golf’s oldest major in its return to Portrush?

“I’m happy with how I played out there. It was pretty tricky at times, and certainly the last three, four holes the wind really picked up,” Hatton said.

Pretty tricky.

If there’s one word to describe Thursday at the Open Championship — from the holes to the conditions — it was “tricky.” Whether you found yourself tied for the 18-hole lead or bottomed out of the year’s final major, Royal Portrush, in the opening round, was hard to unriddle than a Serpent Cube.

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Eight hours before Hatton exited the stage after his first round, Nicolai Hojgaard stepped to the mic following a two-under round and got the message going.

“It was tricky; I thought the course was tricky,” Hojgaard said. “There was a lot of crosswinds, and I felt like it was tough to hit the fairways. But yeah, the course is playing exactly how we want it. It’s tricky. The wind is tricky. But if you’re in control, you can make birdies out there.”

Added Northern Ireland’s own and Portrush member Tom McKibbin, who shot one over: “It was tricky. Some of the pin positions are really good. They’re just over just slopes. I played here so many times, and you would never even think of seeing pins where they are. It played pretty tricky.”

Players like Adam Scott, Rickie Fowler and Sergio Garcia, who teed off in the early portion of the afternoon wave, got pettled with rain out of the gate, which made the gettable holes more difficult, and then had to deal with windier conditions on the more challenging part of the back nine.

Which, of course, only added to the fair, but harsh test Royal Portrush is presenting this week.

“It’s a tricky golf course, depending on where the wind’s at and what kind of weather we have,” said Fowler, who opened with a round of two under. “You have to think your way around it and hit — execute still, but also know when you can maybe play on the aggressive side or when you need to kind of play conservative or just stay smart and take what the course gives you.”

Garcia made three straight birdies on the front nine but gave some back to shoot an opening-round 70. He’s three back of the pack of leaders at four under.

“I thought the conditions were not too bad, but they were tricky sometimes,” Garcia said. “Our first six holes were quite tricky with the rain and the wind. Funny enough, that’s probably where I played some of my best golf.”

There was Adam Scott, who yo-yoed his way around Portrush to shoot one over, talking about the difficulty in the changing conditions during the round. That, of course, adds to the difficulty level, which should only ratchet up as the week draws on.

“It felt like we teed off in the rain and played the whole lot in the rain. It was tricky at times. But my golf was okay,” Scott said.

Portush has its share of scoreable holes, but it also has a number of holes that can rattle even the world’s best if they get caught in the blender.

Up first was the par-4 11th hole, which played as the hardest hole during Thursday’s opening round with an average of 4.40.

Defending champion Xander Schauffele found that out first hand when he hit his tee shot into the native area on the right side of the fairway, laid up and eventually walked away with bogey after missing an 18-footer for par.

“Eleven comes to mind, into the wind and rain, into left-to-right off that hole is a tricky one,” Schauffele said. “You’re trying to do your best to hit that fairway. If you miss it, you’re hanging on for dear life.”

Schauffele was far from the only one to get their hand slapped by No. 11.

Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa and Hideki Matsuyama all made bogey. Brooks Koepka made double.

Then, of course, there is the opening hole, which terrorized the early groups.

McKibbin admitted to thinking about McIlroy’s opening tee shot in 2019, which sailed out of bounds and led to a major-opening quadruple bogey eight. The first played as the fifth hardest hole and left scars on McIlroy, Thomas and Jason Day, among others, in Round 1.”It’s 270 to the first part on the right and then 290-ish to the second part on the left,” Day said of No. 1. “You’ve got to thread it. Wind was in out of the right pretty steady today, out of bounds, and long rough to an elevated green. Once you’re in the rough, very difficult to control the ball coming into it. The greens are so firm, so it’s hard to get the correct distance landing it. And you’ve got to hit the fairway there to get yourself in good position to be able to like get yourself on the green to at least give yourself a chance to birdie.”

In a word…yep, tricky.