Barely had the tears dried and the emotions been choked back from Wednesday’s farewell to St Andrews by Arnold Palmer when it felt like you needed to start them all over again in Thursday’s opening round of the 144th Open Championship.

Graeme McDowell will get Ireland’s challenge at the 2014 Masters up and running tomorrow at Augusta National when he tees off in the opening round of the year’s first major championship at 2.35pm Irish time.

With the top two spots on the leaderboard held by a South African and an Australian, the British Open provided considerable food for thought for the rival Ryder Cup captains Davis Love III and Jose-Maria Olazabal.

Woods finally birdied at the 412-yard 12th to improve to three over par, but Faldo followed his six at the ninth with another at the 374-yard 10th.