By Rob Hodgetts and Matt Slater BBC Sport at Hoylake

Daly still remains one of golf's biggest stars

There has been some talk in the media centre about which of the first two days' groups, or games as the R&A prefers, most deserved the tag "heavyweight".

Most observers have been dragged, gravity-style, towards the Stuart Appleby, John Daly and Colin Montgomerie three-ball, probably because whichever group Daly is in would be a good shout.

But the players' weights are listed in the media guides for each tour represented here and it seems the consensus view is wrong.

The Appleby-Daly-Monty front row weighs in at 271kg, 28kg less than a group that trundled around the course almost two hours before them - Angel Cabrera, Mark Calcavecchia and Kenneth Ferrie.

To be fair to Ferrie, he looks a little less than the 102kg he is listed at in the European Tour guide, and those kg are pretty well distributed over his 6ft 4in frame.

Angel and Calcs, however, appear to be playing to every gram of their combined 197kg.

Ho proved to be a surprise draw for the Open's early spectators

OK, hands up. Who predicted that game three - South Korea's SK Ho, Finn Mikko Ilonen and John Senden of Australia - would be one of the day's best three-ball?

Admittedly, there are still a few tasty looking groups still to start, let alone finish, but they are going to have to go some to top Ho, Ilonen and Senden's combined score of 10 under par.

Ho, playing in his fourth Open, and Ilonen, who won the British Amateur here in 2000, were tied for the early clubhouse lead on four under, while Senden, who won in the US on Sunday to clinch his Hoylake berth, carded a two-under 70.

To be honest, before the start of play this game looked more like being the day's least watched than lowest scoring.

An early start, no domestic interest and little star quality, Ho, Ilonen and Senden demonstrated just how serendipitous good golf can be at the Open.

David Blaine pales by comparison with Open starter Ivor Robson

One of the longest shifts in sport has started.

Open starter Ivor Robson will be on duty - without a break or refreshment - for nine minutes short of 10 hours. David Blaine in his plastic box has nothing on our Ivor.

Part compere, part cheerleader, Robson has been vigorously shaking hands with golfers and introducing them to the crowd in a sing-song manner since 1975.

Clearly a firm believer in the principle that classic looks never go out of fashion, Robson looked smashing in his black lace-ups, sensible slacks and trademark green jacket.

The likes of Ian Poulter and Darren Clarke could learn plenty from Ivor's understated approach to tailoring.

But it is his ability to exude bonhomie that is most impressive. No matter how many balls these guys hit every day and how many clutch putts for money and ranking points they sink, hitting the first drive at the Open Championship has got to be daunting.

And with play delayed by 30 minutes because of "thunderstorm activity", the normally sparse crowd for the first game had swelled to a few hundred.

Robson's role at this point is reminiscent of Michael Palin's compassionate Roman, Nisus Wettus, in 'The Life of Brian' - "Crucifixion? Good, out of the door, line on the left, one cross each" - in that even something scary can be made to sound pleasant.

Thankfully, his two-handed welcome and friendly banter removed much of the tension, and Peter Hedblom, this year's electric rabbit for the 156-strong field and a double for Peter Schmeichel, was able to find the middle of the fairway with his three-wood.

Steve Elkington, who dined with the diary on Tuesday (admittedly he was sitting about 30 yards away), and Jerry Kelly followed suit, getting the 135th Open off to an encouraging start. But then with Robson in charge that was never really in doubt.

Could England's WAGs have really decamped to Hoylake?

'Incredible' is perhaps the only word to describe downtown Hoylake - the bit between the Greek restaurant and the pet shop on Market Street - on the eve of the first proper day of the Open.

'Incredible' as in 'scarcely believable'.

Having exclusively revealed to the world that Hollywood movie stars were beating a path to Hoylake public house The Ship, we now fear we have fallen victim to a spot of Scouse leg-pulling.

It's not because we can't imagine George Clooney drinking in The Ship (actually, we can't. After all, it seems as likely as George pulling over for breakfast at Little Chef).

But it's more that the staff tried to convince us that this old-skool boozer has now replaced The Ivy as Britain's celebrity hang-out of choice.

Look lads, you can't kid kidders, we started that rumour, so don't tell us half the cast of "Friends" have just been in.

Any more of that and we'll decamp to The Plasterers Arms, an establishment that we're led to believe is diary-friendly.

But comedians weren't the predominant group out in force in Hoylake on Wednesday evening, would-be footballers' Wives And Girlfriends were.

If Baden Baden has been the WAG holiday destination/shopping opportunity of choice this summer, places like Hoylake's La Bodega are where aspiring centre-halves' other-halves gather to discuss the off-side trap and how best to apply fake tan.

The Open seemed a million miles away, despite the presence of a number of red-faced punters clearly just in from a long day at the course - Alan Partridge would probably describe it as "liquid golf".

No sign of any actual footballers yet, though, which is disappointing. We'll keep you posted.

Montgomerie - veteran of seven Ryder Cups, er... master of six

To wrap up the practice days and bed down the newly formed Royal Order of Golf Editors and Reporters (Roger), we thought we'd dish out a few early awards.

Nothing huge, just a small token of our esteem for the last few days here at Hoylake.

Welcome to the inaugural "Rogers".

Bravest man at Hoylake: This award goes to an unknown radio reporter for an interview with Colin Montgomerie.
Hack: "So, Colin, you played well in six Ryder Cups."
Monty: "Er, I've played in seven."
Hack: "Yes, but you only played well in six."

Most embarrassing moment: The journalist who asked Tiger Woods for some advice for the French amateur he would be playing with in the first two rounds.

Woods: "I'm not playing with him." (Woods is paired with Nick Faldo and Shingo Katayama)

Most assiduous practiser: Phil Mickelson. "Lefty" took two hours to play the first three holes on Monday and then spent an hour on the 18th green. But according to one marshal on the third, the world number two has already cooked his goose. "He'll never win it now. He's thought about it too much."

Best shot: Adam Scott and Vijay Singh. Australian Scott got up-and-down left-handed from a bunker at St Andrews last year and demonstrated the manoeuvre to his friend Trevor Immelman on the par-four 11th here at Hoylake on Tuesday. Singh was also seen splashing out of a bunker left-handed, with a three-wood on the 18th.

Worst shot: Trevor Immelman's attempt to do the above.

Biggest disappointment: When the Japanese TV crew asked us to model some fetching new rainwear, as worn by the Hoylake marshals, but then said we had to give it back.

Garcia does a Tom Cruise-style autograph session

Golf is a game for gentlemen and has good manners and etiquette at its core.

But among the politeness and decorum, darkened occasionally by feuding past and present world number ones, shine several beacons of sheer niceness.

Everyone knows that David Howell, an unassuming son of Swindon, is the nicest man in golf, but the European Order of Merit leader has been out-Howelling himself this week.

On the eve of the tournament, as the sun dipped behind the stands, Howeller completed his final putting practice on the clubhouse green, signed a few autographs and then made to leave.

But like soul legend James Brown's stage party piece, Howell was urged back time and time again as more people asked him to sign their possessions.

"Oh dear, I've started something now," said the smiling Englishman, pleading to be let off for dinner.

Another nice man is Spain's Sergio Garcia, who, as well as surpassing all the standard autograph-signing protocol, spent a good five minutes helping a group of middle-aged American ladies fix their broken camera so they could pose for a photo with him.

There's plenty of other good guys out there, but the message is clear. Fellas, if you want to get in the diary, you'll have to be extra-specially nice.

Diary was burnt by the Clooney ruse but never again

No, we still haven't seen any, although one of the security girls outside the clubhouse said she had just seen one with "shaggy hair, Keith something I think, used to play for Northern Ireland" - any ideas?

But we do know where "shed loads" of them will be this evening, which can't be good news for the owner of La Bodega in Hoylake.

GolfPunk, prospective members of Roger (which is considering asking Ken Brown and The Guardian's Marina Hyde, who sits behind us, to join so we can change our name to the Royal Order of Golf Editors, Reporters, Experts and Diarists) is expecting a job lot of them down at the magazine's 'Love golf' party in Liverpool on Thursday.

Enthusiastic providers of diary fodder over the last couple of years, the lads mag meets Golf Monthly publication opened its 'clubhouse' in one of the bars in the city's trendy Albert Dock on Wednesday.

Local boy Nick Dougherty attended "for about an hour and a half" and was, apparently, "a great laugh".

That's good to hear as we like Nick too and are strongly considering adding him to our "nicest man in golf" shortlist.

Anyway, we'll let you know when we actually see a footballer with our own eyes. We've learned our George Clooney lesson the hard way.