Why hole No. 1 is playing a big part in this year's Open Championship - ESPN

PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — Congratulations, J.J. Spaun, you've made it to the Open Championship for the first time in your career. Here's the first hole at Royal Portrush — there's out of bounds on both sides. Make sure you hit it straight.

In your honor, Padraig Harrington; how does setting your alarm for 4 in the morning so you can hit the first ball of the entire tournament toward this tight, bowling alley of a corridor at 6:35 in the morning sound?

«There was plenty of second thoughts, 'Why did I say yes?' Because of the tee shot. There's got to be easier ones,» Harrington said. He spent his time on the range before hitting about 40 3-irons intermittently to familiarize himself with the wind and ended up making birdie on the hole. «I hyped up the tee shot as much as I could so when I got there today, it wasn't too bad.»

Welcome back, Shane Lowry. Don't think that the opening hole — all 425 yards of it — gets any easier for someone who has won this tournament here before. With hundreds of fans lining the ropes just next to the danger zones, the fairway might look even narrower than you remember.

«The first tee shot wasn't that easy,» Lowry said. «I wasn't feeling very comfortable there.»

And how about you, Rory McIlroy? The shot you hit in 2019 on that very same tee, the one that went left and never stopped going left until it found the out of bounds and led to a quadruple-bogey 8, is all anyone can talk about in the lead-up to this year's Open. Now you get to try it all again.

The scene on Thursday when McIlroy did step up to the first tee was like something out of a movie. The galleries were 20 deep, and the tension in the air gave way to an eerie silence. When McIlroy appeared, the crowd nervously cheered. He