Romero takes advantage of calm conditions

It was a case of making hay while the sun shone when the £2.7m (€3.95m) Dunhill Links championship began today – and 51-year-old Eduardo Romero was among those who did.

Still with hopes of becoming the oldest winner in European Tour history the Argentinian played his first round of the celebrity pro-am event at Carnoustie and after five holes was four under par.

Romero birdied the 446-yard 10th – he began on the back nine – and long 14th and in between had an eagle three at the 479-yard 12th.

It put the 2002 Scottish Open champion one ahead of Italian Emanuele Canonica and two in front of a group which included Ryder Cup star Paul Casey, former US PGA champion Rich Beem and current European Open champion Kenneth Ferrie.

Not surprisingly, Romero was the early leader in the team competition too. His partner was American actor John O’Hurley, who played J Peterman in the comedy series Seinfeld.

Golf clearly means a lot to O’Hurley. His novel way of proposing to his wife was to put the ring into a packet and then into the seventh hole of Pebble Beach for her to find.

She thought it was just some rubbish and threw the packet over the cliff by the green, but he scrambled down and retrieved it.

St Andrews and Kingsbarns are the other two courses being used this week and with bad weather expected those players at Carnoustie – the toughest of the three – were happy to be tackling it in warm and fairly calm conditions.

Casey and Beem were also on the course, while Canonica and Ferrie were at Kingsbarns, where their partners were ex-Chelsea ace Gianfranco Zola and Olympic gold medal-winning triple jumper Jonathan Edwards respectively.