Continued: An afternoon tee time, please

Anyone who didn't say afternoon might as well leave now. Besides, they probably still need some folks out at the sixth hole to look for Mickelson's ball, submerged somewhere in the prickly rough. Yep, Lefty played in the morning — and paid the price, losing a ball along the way.

Among the top 14, only Retief Goosen and Mike Weir teed off in the morning. Both shot 71s that probably felt more like 61s. Going deeper, just four of the top 27 on opening day were morning starters.

"Starting the day, I would have definitely taken a 1-over par given the weather we had when we started," Weir said. "It was just tough to keep dry, and the wind was as strong as I've ever seen."

Of the first 78 players who went out — exactly half the 156-player field — there were 19 scores in the 80s, three of them in Singh's group. Hunter Mahan and Reinier Saxton made it 80 across the board.

"You got rain blowing sideways. It was cold. It was windy," said Singh, who played the first 11 holes at 10 over and insisted, "I didn't play badly."

Lyle and Beem were on the way to exorbitant scores until they walked off the course without finishing, drawing the scorn of R&A honcho Peter Dawson, who accused them of not being professional. But it was certainly easy to sympathize with them based on their cards.

The 50-year-old Lyle, who's getting ready to play senior golf, was simply overmatched by the brutal conditions. He shot an 11-over 45 on the front side and called it a day after going out with some degree of dignity, a par at No. 10.

"It was just constant rain all the time," he said. "It was difficult keeping my hands dry and, of course, I wear glasses, so that didn't help. It's a brutal golf course."

Beem started this way: bogey, quadruple-bogey, bogey, bogey, bogey, bogey, double-bogey. He finally made his first par at No. 8, then bogeyed the next hole too. Already at 46 — 12 strokes above par — he saw no reason to go on.

"If I had continued, I don't think I would have broken 90," Beem said.