Adam Scott quick out of the blocks to lead 2012 Open Championship

Adam Scott’s opening round 64 sees the Australian the early leader of the 2012 Open Championship.

Adam Scott fired a superb 6-under par 64 to be the early clubhouse leader of the Open Championship at Royal Lytham. Scott’s round was full of fabulous iron play and a hot broomstick putter which included 26 putts, 10 one-putts and 8 birdies.

Tiger Woods, Zach Johnson, Paul Lawrie and Graeme McDowell were all providing plenty of highlights early in the day, but Adam Scott was gliding past them. When Scott birdied 16, the Aussie had a three shot lead.

You would think most of us lucky enough to be watching on the BBC coverage via FoxSports would have been in golfing heaven. But it took some time for the BBC to show much more of Adam Scott than a few putts. Of the 64 shots that Adam Scott played, we were lucky to see no more than around 15 of them. The majority were from the putting surface.

The few iron shots we saw Scott played, it was obvious the former #1 ticket holder for the Adelaide Crows was was flushing it. Several approach shots were followed by a twirl of the club that we’re not used to seeing from Australians at the majors in recent times.

All of a sudden there was talk of Scott beating the best opening round in the history of the Open Championship, a 63 by Rory McIlroy in 2010 and Mark Hayes in 1977. Unfortunately, the history making attempt came unstuck on the final hole.

We hadn’t seen a shot from Adam Scott for the entire round, but a comment from Wayne Grady about the difficult final hole tee shot and the BBC give us our first look from Adam Scott between the markers. We were soon wishing we hadn’t seen it.

Attempting to play safe with an iron, Scott hooked his drive into heavy rough. His pitch out left him with a wedge over a bunker to a tight pin. His shot was good enough but missed the 20 foot putt to settle for what was a very good opening round 64.

The final hole bogey should not blemish what was otherwise a fantastic opening round. Adam Scott has struggled in his opening round at both previous majors in 2012 but managed to shoot three good final rounds at both the US Masters and the US Open to finish with his head held high.

Australian golf fans will take a lot to get excited given our tear-soaked history in major golf tournaments. But that opening round has us all sitting a little closer to the TV come the second round on Friday.