Luke finally gets out of first gear but Lee stalls

LUKE DONALD tends to start at majors like a dicey old Austin Allegro on a freezing January morning before the engine gradually purrs into life — normally when it is too late to catch the leaders.

Happily this was not one of those days, but last night he still admitted to having a ‘bitter taste in my mouth’ after dropping a shot on the last that prevented him from beginning The Open with an under-par score.

The late slip that saw him leave his final putt centimetres short and finish on level par was more representative of his fellow illustrious Englishmen such as Justin Rose and Lee Westwood, who ended up frustrated by their failure to take advantage of the benign conditions.

World No 1 Donald saw more of the wind than they did and until the 18th looked like he was going to break 70 for the first time in 20 opening rounds at majors, a sequence that dates back to the US PGA in 2006 at Medinah, just outside his adopted home city of Chicago.

He had played an admirably steady round, threading his way through the bunkers with delicate iron play and reeling off par after par to add to his one birdie on the third.

Donald (right) denied that the 70 figure had been playing on his mind: ‘I was just trying to play a round without making a bogey,’ he said. ‘It’s human nature to focus on that last hole but I hit a lot of good shots as well. It’s an improvement on the last major and something that I can build on.’

Westwood enjoyed the best of the conditions and when he birdied the first two holes it looked like the rest of the field might be left standing.

A double bogey followed and four hours later he had subsided to three over thanks to 40 on the back nine.

‘I’ve been struggling a little bit at the moment and the start was a bit of a lie really,’ he said.

‘It was nice to birdie the first two but I don’t feel in control of the ball at the moment.’

Rose has been in excellent form but ended up another shot back having failed to recover from going five over after the first eight.

He took to Twitter later to describe his performance as ‘rubbish’ before going on to explain: ‘Hit loads of fairways which should have been the hard part. Iron game was minging.’

Ian Poulter is, like Donald, better placed to make a move today after finishing one over par, but as an early starter on a calm morning will have felt he should have done better after going out in 34.