Hitting the front

Tom Watson tells the story that every time he played in a tournament, he spent more time looking up at the scoreboard than he did reading greens.

The five-time Champion Golfer of the Year great spent hundreds of collective hours – from Augusta to Adelaide and Carnoustie to Cape Town – scanning for the name of his great rival, Jack Nicklaus.

At The 153rd Open, 155 players can surely relate.

An army of scoreboards dotted around Royal Portrush offer an opportunity to look for the one name they so desperately want to see, the one that is the hardest to beat.

And, unfortunately for them, Scottie Scheffler can be found right at the very top

The world No.1 and three-time major winner delivered a masterclass in links golf that Watson and Nicklaus would have been proud of to punch in a seven-under-par round of 64.

It lifts him to 10-under-par for the Championship, one stroke ahead of Matt Fitzpatrick, who was also excellent for his five-under-par round of 66.

Fitzpatrick is a major champion and won’t be fazed by being in the final pairing on Moving Day. But Scheffler is right there, where nobody wants him.

Golf has not seen a winner like Scheffler since Tiger was in his peak. He won seven times on the PGA Tour last season, plus an Olympic gold medal, in a season for the ages.

This year, he has already won the PGA Championship, his third major title alongside two Masters successes, and his conversion rate for turning leads into victories is ominously good.

Scheffler will be aware that at The Open reputations go out of the window

This is the stage where anything can happen, an event that inspires players to reach heights they didn’t think capable and cut others down to size. It’s much more than a battle of skill and nerve.

But in this land of giants, a Champion will triumph. And there are few champions quite like Scottie Scheffler.

He kept his analysis simple and to the point, saying: "I felt like I hit a few more fairways than I did yesterday, hit some really nice iron shots, and was able to hole some putts."

It is ironic to think that when Scheffler teed off at 3:10pm, he was supposedly on the wrong side of the draw. The morning brought blue skies and calmer winds, and those lucky enough to be on course cashed in.

By the time Scheffler walked onto the 1st tee, he was met by a heavy downpour – the type of which the word ‘shower’ doesn’t do justice and had spectators sprinting for cover.

Still, he was undeterred. Scheffler looked at the rain, shrugged his shoulders and got on with the job – making birdies.

He started on the 1st, a hole so tricky that it has played at 74-over-par this week and has been labelled as one of the toughest opening holes in major championship golf.

Just ask Jacob Skov Olesen for his opinion of ‘Hughie’s’.

The Dane was one of five co-leaders after round one but hit his first tee shot on Friday out of bounds to the right. He then overcorrected and hit his second out of bounds to the left, and his third into the rough. He walked off with a quadruple bogey.

Scheffler admitted he had 'no idea' what sort of score was possible when he set out. He knows conditions play an integral role at The Open.

"When we were teeing off, depending on what weather forecast you looked at, it was going to tell you something different. It was super sunny when we were on the driving range, I'm out there in short sleeves, it's warm out. Then we get to the 1st hole, it's still sunny. Then all of a sudden, you look around and it's super dark and it starts pouring rain. You're like, boy, I wonder how long this is going to last.

"Fortunately, it didn't pour the whole time. We only had maybe four or five holes where it was really coming down, and I was able to take advantage of the holes where we had some good weather."

Scheffler picked up three birdies in a row on 5, 6 and 7, but it was the way he finished that made this a round for the ages.

On 16, the notorious par-3 called Calamity Corner that was the second-hardest hole of the day, he arrowed his tee shot on a perfect line and stopped it 17 feet from the pin. The birdie putt finding the cup was inevitable.

Scheffler then sliced his tee shot on 17 so badly it scattered the spectators watching by the rope. But he turned water into wine by taking advantage of a kind lie with a gorgeous approach shot to 15 feet. Like on the previous hole, the birdie putt was far from simple – but in reality it was a foregone conclusion.

He teed off on 18 with a chance of equalling Shane Lowry’s course record and, with the Irishman playing in the same group, it would have been fitting.

His birdie putt pulled up just short, perhaps slowed by the collective breath of the remaining players in the field. But it did not darken a great round.