Colin Montgomerie felt pride for his friends, family and fellow Royal Troon members as he struck the first shot at the Open Championship but even more for himself as he battled back from its potentially disastrous consequences at Royal Troon yesterday.

The former European number one, who considers the Ayrshire town his golfing home, only qualified to play in his first Open for six years at Glasgow Gailes last month, but as a pundit on Sky, who have the live broadcast rights for the first time, was the obvious choice to get the tournament underway and he did so in dramatic fashion.

A slightly errant opening tee shot followed by a distraction from an adjacent grandstand as he addressed his second shot, led to a double bogey six as he found a greenside bunker and took two to get out, while both his playing partners, Luke Donald and Marc Leishman, were registering birdie threes.

However while that might once have put him in a thunderous mood Monty responded brilliantly with five birdies in seven holes to hold the lead at three-under-par when he reached the halfway mark.

While the back nine subsequently took its toll he was very satisfied with his performance as he looked forward to a late breakfast following his 6.35am start.

“It was a great honour for me and for the family and the members of Troon that I kick this off (and) I tell you what, a lot better players than me in the world of golf would have taken 71 after being two-over at the first,” declared the 53-year-old declared, whose father was once secretary of the host club.

“One of the easiest holes, if not the easiest par-four on the course. To be two-over there… a lot better players, the top 10 in the world would have taken 71 there after that.

“Yes, so I'm very proud of myself for hanging on, because that was easy, easy to score 78 there.”

His buoyant mood was such that he was even able to be philosophical about the incident that contributed to his loss of concentration at the first and made a joke at his own expense.

“Sometimes people aren’t quite ready for the opening shots,” he observed.

“There was a guy at the top of the stand opening up all the Wi-Fi from some sort of carrier bag that was keeping it dry overnight or something and he wasn’t quite aware of what was directly below him… which was me.

“I tell you, the best shot I hit, probably one of the best shots of my life, was the fourth shot out of the bunker in the first, away from the hole.

“It’s amazing how that ball came out. No-one in the field would have got the first ball out of there. It was buried right in the face of the bunker.

“And the second one fell into a footprint… and my footprint is deeper than most,” he quipped.

He had suffered a bout of nerves before striking the opening blow, but drew on his vast experience to deal with them.

“I’d be inhuman if there wasn’t (nerves), very much so,” said Montgomerie.

“But I sort of dug deep into the Ryder Cup ways where I’d led off the tee twice in the singles and three or four times in the four-ball foursome. So it was that type of feeling.”