Scott makes shaky start to The Open
Adam Scott has made a meal of the par-5s in a shaky and dramatic start to the British Open at Royal Portrush.
Scott's front-nine three-over-par 39 ground to a halt at one point as the Australian No.1 had to wait for former champion David Duval to complete an utterly disastrous attempt of the seventh hole.
Duval, the 2001 Open champion at Royal Lytham, humiliated himself in racking up a 13 on the 592-yard par-5 after losing two balls, hitting a wrong one and needing three shots off the tee.
Scott's group, also featuring defending champion Francesco Molinari, temporarily played through as Duval chopped his way up to the green in 12 shots before one-putting for his extraordinary baker's dozen.
Scott, Molinari and American Bryson De Chambeau eventually reached the turn after a painstaking 2-3/4 hours..
And Scott had plenty of ground to make up on the leaders after double-bogeying the 574-yard second and also taking bogeys on seven and nine.
He found a fairway bunker on the second, then made the cardinal sin of leaving his next shot in the trap before missing the green with his approach and being unable to get up and down to limit the damage to a bogey.
Scott rebounded brilliantly with a 25-foot birdie putt from off the green on the third, only to hook his drive on the seventh into sandy waste.
The 2013 Masters champion hit a semi-shank from the buried lie in the sand and could only manage to leave his third some 50-metres short of the green.
Another bogey on the 432-yard par-4 ninth left Scott trailed morning clubhouse leader Shane Lowrey by seven strokes heading into his back nine.
The Irishman had five birdies and a bogey in his four-under 67 to set the early pace.
Scott was the first Australian to hit off on Thursday.
He was also hoping to be the last of Australia's six-strong contingent to tee off on Sunday, as high up the leaderboard as possible as the former runner-up chases what has increasingly become his golfing holy grail.
After leading on the back nine in the final rounds in 2012, 2013 and 2015, only to let the famous trophy slip from his fingers on all three occasions, Scott craves to be in contention once more having tasted being in the mix again at the pointy end of the past five majors.
"I had a run for four years when I felt I was going to win the thing. I'd like to get those feelings going again," Scott told AAP ahead of his 20th consecutive Open tilt.
Scott's compatriots Jason Day, Marc Leishman, Cameron Smith, Jake McLeod and Dimi Papadatos were all playing in the afternoon.
