Ryder Cup team-mates Sergio Garcia and Paul McGinley were the stars on the opening day of the 136th Open Championship at Carnoustie - and for both of them there were special reasons why it felt so good.

The last time the event came to the Scottish town eight years ago - also the last time a European won a major - Garcia finished dead last after rounds of 89 and 83 that remain the worst of his professional career.

The 27-year-old, who has never been back until this week, improved an incredible 24 shots on that horrendous opening effort in 1999 with a marvellous six under par 65.

As a result Garcia takes a two-stroke lead over McGinley into the second round, the Dubliner having marked his return to big-time golf in fine style too after missing out on both the Masters and the US Open.

Tiger Woods, though, remains the favourite after kicking off his bid for the first hat-trick of Open titles since Peter Thomson in 1956 with an incident-packed 69.

Garcia cried into his mother's arms after coming off the course almost a broken young man last time.

He was only three months out of the amateur ranks, but he had won the Irish Open two weeks earlier and just four days before had come second to Colin Montgomerie at the Scottish Open.

Instead of starting with a triple bogey seven again, though, he kicked off with a birdie and really made his move at the start of the back nine with four more in five holes.

Finding a bunker and bogeying the 16th proved only a minor setback as the Spaniard, who has had 12 top 10s in majors without a win, came straight back with another birdie on the 461-yard 17th and got up and down from sand at the last.

It hurt McGinley so much not to be in the first two majors of the season after his slump outside the world's top 150 that he could not bring himself to sit in front of a television.

But it should be easier for the 40-year-old to watch the highlights this time.

McGinley, who has not had a top 10 finish all year, said: "It obviously feels wonderful to be leading a major championship," he said before Garcia had completed his round to claim the lead.

"The thing that pleased me most was I played with quality - and it's a pretty good tournament to do it in."

This is not the first time McGinley has been in such a position. But the other occasion was long before he started his Ryder Cup heroics in 2002.

Helped by a front nine 29 - one outside the Open record - at Lytham in 1996 the Dubliner shared the halfway pace with American star Tom Lehman. But he was then caught like a rabbit in the headlights.

"It was just a circus. It was something I'd not seen before. I remember 20, 30, 40 photographers around the greens and just off the tee boxes and everytime somebody hit a shot there was a massive click, click, click.

"Of course, I was over-awed by the whole thing, no doubt about that. It was a big, big, big learning curve."

Lehman had a third round 64 and went on to win. McGinley shot 74 and ended up 14th. That remains his best finish in the event, but with three Ryder Cup wins under his belt that is clearly something he hopes to change.

"When I'm playing well I feel as good as anybody, but when I'm playing bad it's 'Christ, am I ever going to play well again?'

"I've had a great start, but there's a long, long way to go and this golf course is so difficult and relentless."

It is also the longest in Open history at 7,421 yards and McGinley admits he can not overpower courses.

Nor does he like the cold and wet conditions that greeted the players, but, without the ferocious rough that turned the links into 'Car-nasty' eight years ago with a winning score of six over par, he was able to cope with the challenge.

"For me it's all about ball control and on the practice range something I worked on kicked into place. I birdied the first two holes and when you do that in a British Open it's a great buzz."

McGinley, who on the recommendation of his cup partner Padraig Harrington sat down for the first time with American sports psychologist Bob Rotella on the eve of the championship, was four under after seven and then three clear when he added further birdies at the 13th and 14th.

Three-putting the next and going in a bunker at the 248-yard 16th led to bogeys, but he avoided another on the last - the hole where Jean Van de Velde blew it in 1999 with a closing triple bogey seven and where his fellow Frenchman Raphael Jacquelin took eight today - by getting up and down from more sand.

For a while it looked as though 1995 champion John Daly, after a year containing yet more personal turmoil in his life, might steal the limelight away from McGinley.

But having pitched in for an eagle two on the 383-yard 11th to go to five under the American, who last month claimed his fourth wife had attacked him with a knife, double-bogeyed the next and then had a triple bogey eight on the 14th.

In joint third place are New Zealand's 2005 US Open champion Michael Campbell, another who has been having a "torrid" time of late, current US Open champion Angel Cabrera, Austrian Markus Brier and, incredibly, the youngest player in the field.

That is 18-year-old European amateur champion Rory McIlroy, from Holywood in Northern Ireland. And, even more remarkably, he was the only player all day not to have a bogey.

Good enough already to have scored a sensational 61 at Royal Portrush two years ago, the baby-faced McIlroy turned in 35, birdied the difficult 10th and then hit his tee shot to within four feet of the flag on the short 13th.

Woods was part of a large group on two under, his eventful 69 including a 15-foot eagle putt on the sixth, an 80-footer for birdie at the 16th and a controversial free drop away from tv cables at the 10th that puzzled even him.

The world number one, told by a referee he could take relief because the cable were deemed immovable, said: "I've never seen a ruling like that. Every time I've played around the world they've picked those up, no problem."

Harrington was another on two under, but Phil Mickelson bogeyed the last for a level par 71 and Ernie Els the last two for 72.

American Boo Weekley was the last of the players on the course to threaten Garcia's lead but two pars saw him in with a very creditable 68.

Collated first-round scores (Gbr & Irl unless stated, par 71):

65 Sergio Garcia (Spa)

67 Paul McGinley

68 Rory McIlroy, Michael Campbell (Nzl), Boo Weekley (USA), Markus Brier (Aut), Angel Cabrera (Arg)

69 Tiger Woods (USA), Miguel Angel Jimenez (Spa), KJ Choi (Kor), Stewart Cink (USA), Padraig Harrington

70 Rodney Pampling (Aus), Retief Goosen (Rsa), Peter Hanson (Swe), J J Henry (USA), Jim Furyk (USA), Thomas Bjorn (Den), Shaun Micheel (USA), Alastair Forsyth, Rich Beem (USA), Luke Donald, Gregory Bourdy (Fra), Carl Pettersson (Swe)

71 Steve Stricker (USA), Lucas Glover (USA), Nick Dougherty, David Toms (USA), Achi Sato (Jpn), Nick O'Hern (Aus), Paul Broadhurst, Phil Mickelson (USA), Trevor Immelman (Rsa), Sean O'Hair (USA), Mike Weir (Can), Andres Romero (Arg), Lee Westwood, Henrik Stenson (Swe)

72 Nick Watney (USA), Anders Hansen (Den), Ben Curtis (USA), Pelle Edberg (Swe), Johan Edfors (Swe), Toru Taniguchi (Jpn), Vijay Singh (Fij), Brett Quigley (USA), Ernie Els (Rsa), Gregory Havret (Fra), David Howell, John Senden (Aus), Matthew Zions (Aus), Darren Clarke, Fredrik Andersson Hed (Swe), Hideto Tanihara (Jpn), Paul Casey, John Rollins (USA), Richard Green (Aus), Scott Verplank (USA), Ryan Moore (USA)

73 Charles Howell III (USA), Won Joon Lee (Aus), Sandy Lyle, Arron Oberholser (USA), Pat Perez (USA), Adam Scott (Aus), Zach Johnson (USA), Colin Montgomerie, Peter Baker, Tom Lehman (USA), Ross Bain, Steve Parry, Hunter Mahan (USA), Jon Bevan, Robert Allenby (Aus), Paul Lawrie, Ian Poulter, Jonathan Byrd (USA)

74 Ross Fisher, Adilson Da Silva (Bra), David Frost (Rsa), John Daly (USA), Robert Karlsson (Swe), Chad Campbell (USA), Justin Leonard (USA), Yong-eun Yang (Kor), Mark O'Meara (USA), Peter Fowler (Aus), Stuart Appleby (Aus), Scott Laycock (Aus), Brian Davis, Jerry Kelly (USA), Steve Alker (Nzl), Mattias Eliasson (Swe), Paul Waring, Chris DiMarco (USA), Tomohiro Kondo (Jpn), Tom Pernice (USA), Toshinori Muto (Jpn), Matt Kuchar (USA), Terry Pilkadaris (Aus), Raphael Jacquelin (Fra), Mark Calcavecchia (USA), Loren Roberts (USA)

75 Charley Hoffman (USA), Charl Schwartzel (Rsa), Benn Barham, Llewellyn Matthews, Geoff Ogilvy (Aus), Toshimitsu Izawa (Jpn), John Bickerton, Jose-Filipe Lima (Por), Kevin Stadler (USA), Justin Rose, Niclas Fasth (Swe), Dong-Hwan Lee (Jpn), Brett Wetterich (USA), Paul Sheehan (Aus)

76 Francesco Molinari (Ita), Spencer Levin (USA), Richie Ramsay, Rory Sabbatini (Rsa), David Shacklady, Chih-bing Lam (Sin), Drew Weaver (USA), Mark Foster, Richard Sterne (Rsa), Bradley Dredge

77 Jeev Milkha Singh (Ind), Anthony Wall, Joe Durant (USA), Graeme McDowell, Anders Hultman (Swe), Kevin Harper, Doug McGuigan, Seung Hoo Lee (Kor)

78 Desvonde Botes (Rsa), Aaron Baddeley (Aus), Justin Kehoe, Michael Putnam (USA), Tony Jacklin, Graeme Storm

79 Nick Faldo, Davis Love III (USA), Mark Hensby (Aus), Scott Drummond, David Higgins, Adam Groom (Aus), David Coupland

80 Oliver Wilson

81 Ben Bunny (Aus), Todd Hamilton (USA), Stephen Ames (Can)

82 Duffy Waldorf (USA), Vaughn Taylor (USA)

83 David Gleeson (Aus), Ewan Porter (Aus)