British The Championship Open 2010: Rory McIlroy ties record; John Daly, Tiger Woods in pursuit

ST. ANDREWS, SCOTLAND — The strangest thing happened here Thursday morning, when light broke over the Old Course and the British Open began. There was mist, appropriate for a summer day on the North Sea. There was, occasionally, drizzle. But the relentless wind and the frigid rains that had made St. Andrews a miserable place for golf Wednesday were gone. What remained, at least for the players in the morning half of the first-round draw, was a defenseless Old Course that could be had, if only for part of a day, and had by all sorts of players.

Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy led the way with an exciting, nearly flawless, 9-under-par 63 that showed his talent and flair on the stage he most relishes. The 63 tied the record for lowest round in a major championship and put the 21-year-old McIlroy in position to seriously contend in a major for the first time in his promising career.

“You’re just trying to go lower and lower,” McIlroy said. “No negative thoughts come into your mind.”

Which, at the normally demanding Old Course, is remarkable. The storylines, as morning turned to afternoon in Scotland, were nearly too numerous to sort out. The names on the leader board, among those players who had finished playing by early afternoon here: John Daly and one of his playing partners, Scotland’s Andrew Coltart, with 66s, and Tiger Woods leading a group at 67 that included 2009 U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover.

“We were lucky this morning,” Coltart said. “The course was very benign. If we get the benign conditions, guys can go low around here.”

All this happened before several of the stars — including Phil Mickelson, Lee Westwood, U.S. Open champion Graeme McDowell among them — even teed off. And when they did, the sun was actually starting to crack through. St. Andrews likely will never be more vulnerable, because the rain served to soften the greens, but there was no wind to bite back at the field.

“It was awesome, especially because I was thinking that today was going to be like it was yesterday,” said Fairfax native Steve Marino, who went off in the first group of the day — a 6:30 a.m. tee time — and shot a bogey-free 69. “That’s what everybody kept saying. I woke up this morning and I looked outside, and there was no wind, and I couldn’t believe it. Came out here, I was actually kind of sweating on the driving range this morning.”

So the stories began to line up. None was more surprising than that of Daly, the 1995 Open champion on this very course, his favorite in the world, whose travails have included five suspensions from the PGA Tour. Yet Daly’s 66 came in front of an adoring throng that appeared to appreciate the honesty with which he addresses his flaws — and they are numerous — and he made just one bogey, tying Coltart, one of his playing partners. As he approached the 18th green, signs in the gallery along the street read “Daly for President” and “John Daly Living Legend.”

“For me, it’s just a golf course that not only brings great memories, but it’s a memory before you’ve ever played it because of all the great players that have won and played it,” Daly said. “It’s a special place. It’s, to me, my favorite course all over the world that I’ve ever played. When you’ve got that going for you, you don’t feel disappointed when you don’t’ play so well, but you feel even better when you do play well.”

No story was more intriguing, though, than Woods. The stats for the world’s best player coming into this week: six tournaments, no victories, and nagging questions from an inquisitive British press corps about the state of his marriage following unsavory revelations of his infidelity late last year. Woods, though, is extraordinarily comfortable between the ropes here. He mastered the Old Course in 2000 and 2005, when he delivered two of his most convincing victories in major championships, and his lone bogey came at 17, when he drove it in the thick left rough and missed a four-footer for par — with the new putter he’s debuting this week, his first putter change since 1999.

Still, Woods felt comfortable, he said, with both the putter and his round.

“It felt awkward, because there was absolutely no wind whatsoever,” Woods said. “And you never play a links golf course with no wind.”

McIlroy made seven birdies and eagled the ninth, driving the green on the par-4. But he actually could have gone lower, because he hit his approach into the 17th, the perilous Road Hole, to five feet. Perhaps his only mistake of the day was that he missed that putt, and it cost him the first 62 in major championship history.

“It sort of went through my mind at 17 that 62 would have been the lowest score in a major,” McIlroy said. “That’s probably why I missed the putt.”

Still, he birdied the last — a wedge up to perhaps five feet — to get his 63, the first in major championship play since Woods matched the number in the 2007 PGA Championship at Southern Hills. There have been seven 63s in the British Open, including Paul Broadhurst at St. Andrews in the third round in 1990, but none in the first round.

McIlroy did it, too, with the knowledge that half the field still had to take to the course, that three rounds remained, and that St. Andrews laid down.

“You’re never going to get St. Andrews to play easier,” he said.