The first hole at Royal Birkdale has proved to be a treacherous one during the first round of the Open Championship. On Thursday morning, the first four groups produced at least one double-bogey each, a quadruple-bogey and multiple triple-bogeys. In other words, it's been a very busy day for the man in charge of alerting players their balls are out of bounds.
It looked as though the first hole had claimed its latest victim in Charley Hoffman after his opening tee shot. Hoffman found himself right of the fairway, in the fescue and nearly out of bounds. Time to hack it out, find the green and run away with bogey, right? Wrong.
Just a ho-hum eagle from Hoffman, who clearly had no idea it went in. Starting with an eagle is great, but doing it from where he was must have felt like picking up four shots on the field. There is a very strong chance that's the only eagle-2 we see at the first hole this week.
Hoffman, who's making his seventh appearance in the Open Championship, made par on the next three holes and sits at two-under, three shots back of clubhouse leader Jordan Spieth.
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