Tiger Woods’ 78 on Thursday is his highest first-round score at the British Open.

PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — Masters champion Tiger Woods, a threetime winner on the links courses of the only major in Europe, shot a 7-over 78 on Thursday, his highest first-round score at the tournament and thirdhighest opening at any of the four biggest events in golf.

“I hit a lot of missed shots. They were all left,” said Woods, wearing black rain pants and a gray sweater on a day of wet and windy weather. “Wasn’t hitting it solid. Everything was off the heel.”

Woods started the day with the usual cheers and howls as he stepped up on the first tee. They followed him through an opening shot that went left, but he ended up safely making par.

Woods made a fourth straight par on No. 4, but it was the last for quite some time.

With his back always an issue following four surgeries over three years to 2017, Woods’ score began to balloon. A bogey on the fifth was followed by a double bogey on the sixth. Then another bogey.

He racked up six extra shots over those next six holes, getting only one par along the way.

“I’m just not moving as well as I’d like. And unfortunately, you’ve got to be able to move, and especially under these conditions, shape the golf ball. And I didn’t do it,” Woods said. “I didn’t shape the golf ball at all. Everything was left-to-right. And wasn’t hitting very solidly.”

An emotional day for Clarke

It was about 6:30 a.m. when Darren Clarke, sporting a gray beard to match his swept-back gray hair, walked onto the first tee at Royal Portrush to hit the opening shot of a British Open he never thought would happen.

He almost welled up when his name was announced to applause from the packed horseshoe grandstand at No. 1 and the galleries lining the fairway.

An hour later, he was leading the championship after three birdies in his opening five holes, receiving the kind of roars he hasn’t heard since lifting the claret jug at Royal St. George’s in 2011.

“I didn’t think I’d feel the way I did,” said Clarke, who was just as emotional as he strode down the 18th fairway, saluting the crowds with his putter in his right hand.

Clarke wound up shooting an even-par 71. If the score wasn’t memorable, the experience certainly was.

With “The Troubles” mainly behind them since the 1998 Good Friday peace accord, the Northern Irish are hosting golf ’s oldest major for the first time since Max Faulkner won at Royal Portrush in 1951. It is back 68 years later, in a pretty town Clarke now calls home.

“You go back and take a look at some of the pictures 20 years ago, we wouldn’t be standing having this conversation,” he said. “You go down the street, maybe not here, but you see police everywhere, you see Army everywhere. You don’t see that anymore. We’re very proud of our country.”

Duval dials some wrong numbers

A lot of golfers struggled at Royal Portrush, but no one had a day as lousy as David Duval.

Duval, a past champion who won the 2001 British Open, shot a 20-over-par 91 that included a 14 on the par-5 seventh hole, on which he hit the wrong ball and had to start the hole over.

“Very unique, awful situation,” said Duval, who had the poise to stick around and talk to reporters after the worst round of his career.

“I’ve posted 85 twice, but never a 90,” he said. “It was a long day, rough day.”