Colin Montgomerie played a remarkable round of golf to lead the field by three.

He got off to such a good start with a two at the first, which is such a tough hole to birdie.

That gave him confidence and things really flowed from then.

He held on to it in the closing holes with a couple of good saving putts and, really, he did not do anything wrong.

All the aspects of his game were in good shape. He held the vital putts and he got up and down well when he needed to. That is always going to be the key to a round of golf round a place like this.

Roar from the crowd

At Lytham, you are going to go into some bunkers and venture into the rough occasionally. There is nothing much you can do about that, but when Colin did, he got out of it well and he looked to be really enjoying it.

The crowd warmed to him and you can imagine that everyone would like to see Colin Montgomerie up there at the end with a chance to win The Open.

He closed out with a superb birdie at the 18th to a tumultuous roar from the crowd.

It was Montgomerie's day.

The same could not be said for Tiger and he would have been reasonably satisfied to have finished with a 71.

He didn't hit a bunker last year at St Andrews but it only took him four holes today and he probably missed half the fairways he drove on.

We saw a couple of big numbers, including a 10 from Furyk, and when you see a big number on this course it means someone has got tangled up with a bunker.

Fred Couples took four to get out at one and, if you get in the wrong spot, you can find the ball in your footprints and then stay there for a while.

Jeff Maggert had the shot of the day with his approach to the sixth hole. He hit a good tee shot and a lovely iron to the par five for an albatross.

That is a very rare thing and you really only see three or four of those a year.