They’re clearly made of stern stuff in Windygates.
Open debuts are supposed to be knee shaking, nerve shredding ordeals. You wouldn’t have known it if you followed Fifer Peter Whiteford round Royal St George’s.
From the moment the 30-year-old pulled his three wood out of his bag in readiness for Ivor Robson to announce him on to the tee for his 11.31 start, and he nonchalantly twirled it around like a majorette would a baton, he looked to the manor born.
The drive was duly dispatched down the middle of the fairway and off he went.
It was left to American playing partner Spencer Levin to come up with the sort of tee shot Open first-timers are often more prone to an ugly duck hook which only made it about 200 yards and rattled into the spectator railings.
Whiteford wasn’t flustered by the delay that followed while a rules official was summoned to determine where Levin would drop his ball, and a safe par was put on the card.
Birdies at four and eight saw him briefly tied third for the championship. Very briefly, because he bogeyed the next.TextbookThe back nine was a story of fairways, greens, lag putts and tap-ins. Textbook Open golf on a course where balls running off raised greens are the norm.
A dropped shot down the last after his drive found a fairway bunker meant Whiteford couldn’t remain one of the small band of golfers in red figures, but a level par 70 was an excellent day’s work for the joint top Scot in the clubhouse alongside Stephen Gallacher.
His Open experiences have been confined to a beer tent at St Andrews, so how did being at the heart of the action compare?
“Aye, it beats the beer tent,” he said. “It really has been great and I’m already looking forward to tomorrow, an early start with nobody out there. I’m out first, probably with my woolly hat and waterproofs on.
“This is what you always wanted to do when you were a kid so I’m delighted to be here and glad that I didn’t embarrass myself too much.
“It’s been a pretty decent day although I’m disappointed not to have broken par, because the wind dropped for us a bit coming down the stretch.Goosebumps”I thought I’d pick one up instead I dropped one. Overall I’d describe it as pretty steady without being brilliant. There weren’t too many goosebump moments out there, apart from maybe the putt at the last.
“I didn’t want to make a double on 18, did I? I might not have been so smiley. I felt that I dealt with the nerves quite well. Last week at the Scottish Open helped. I’ve now been in contention a few times and I’ve been using some of that, taking it all in and not trying to hide from the crowd.
“The size of The Open makes it different from anything else. There are galleries everywhere. I mean, the BMW at Wentworth has phenomenal crowds but they’re all down the last six or seven holes.
“Out here, it’s from the very first hole. It’s different, signing some autographs, which I’m not really used to, and doing some more media stuff, too.”
Nerves might not be a problem for Whiteford but the same can’t be said for his mother, unfortunately.
He said, “My parents are both here but mum (Jane) doesn’t watch any of it. She makes daisy chains instead she’s too nervous.
“I think the old man (Bill) watches from afar. He’s never standing too close, so you don’t get a chance to talk to him.
“But I don’t know why mum comes. It’s a waste of time really, half the time. She’s going to kill me now.”
Hopefully there’s still plenty of daisies on the Kent coastline for Mrs Whiteford to seek out, because if her boy continues as he’s started she might need the distraction late into Sunday afternoon.