Lee Westwood was a whicker away from hitting a perfect shot until a basket intervened, while Tiger Woods holed a monster putt to help stem the tide in an arduous opening round for the favourite.
With rain and thunderstorms prompting delays on the opening day at Merion, plenty of the field will have to finish their opening rounds later today, but there was still plenty of excitement on the first day of the second major of the season.
Luke Donald currently leads the way after shooting four under par in his 13 holes yesterday and Lee Westwood might have been alongside him had he not been drastically unlucky with an approach shot at the 12th hole, when his ball rebounded off one of the wicker baskets that are located atop all the flags on the course and back onto the fairway. Rather than have a chance for a birdie, the Englishman ended up making a double bogey to go back to one under, where he remains three shots off the lead.
Tiger Woods struggled through his opening ten holes to finish at two over par overnight but it would have been worse had he not holed a monster 60 foot putt on the 6th hole to save him from slipping out of contention altogether.
As far as the Irish interest is concerned, the undoubted highlight was the performance of Waterford amateur Kevin Phelan who completed his opening round with a highly commendable one over par 71, Rory McIlroy is well in the hunt on even par, while Graeme McDowell (+3), Padraig Harrington (+3) and Darren Clarke (+5) have it all to do if they are going to make any sort of impact over the weekend.
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