Garcia and Koepka try great escapes

Given how the ghost of Jean van der Velde stalks the water around Carnoustie, it takes a brave man to get his feet wet here. Enter, quite literally, Sergio Garcia after his 400-yard plus drive on the par-four 10th ran and ran all the way into a burn guarding the green.

At this point, the Spaniard was already two over for the round and with nothing much to lose decided to clamber in rather than take a penalty stroke and a drop. With barely any room on the back swing, Garcia managed to get the ball out and over the other side.

Unfortunately, the story does not have a happy ending as Garcia’s exit shot ended up in a bunker and he made a bogey in a run of four successive dropped shots. That left the 38-year-old four over for the day and not in the mood to celebrate his fluid stroke.

“The way I hit my drive I never thought it would reach the burn,” Garcia said. “There was a rock behind the ball and if it was not there then I’m sure I could have got to the green. Then it was unplayable in the bunker. It was a good five.”

Acts of escapology were hard to come by yesterday. Facing an awkward lie in a bunker by the eighth green, US Open champion Brooks Koepka tried to play a shot off his knees only for the ball to roll back into the sand. His second attempt also did not make it out as he picked up a double bogey.

The American had needed to play

In trouble: Sergio Garcia gets his feet wet on the 10th hole as he plays out of the burn and (below) Brooks Koepka kneels for a bunker shot on the eighth another bunker shot with one knee on the grass because of a similar lie on the sixth.

And on the fifth hole, he missed the green so far to the right that workers had to lift television cables for him to putt under from some 100 feet away.

No player shot any higher than Koepka’s 41 in the outward nine, but none went lower than his 31 in the backward nine that left him one over par, six adrift of pacesetter Kevin Kisner.

Koepka, though, won the US Open after being eight shots off the leader after the first round.