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Rocco Mediate, right, shares a laugh with his caddie Matthew Achatz after finishing with a 1-under-par 69 at the British Open on Thursday.

Mickelson, at No. 2 the highest-ranked player at a major for the first time, was not terribly bothered by his 79 because he figured everyone else would struggle. When the winds died slightly, so did his hopes. He was tied for 123rd.

“You can’t play,” Simon Dyson said after an 82 while playing in the opening group. “You put a 4-handicapper on that first tee and they’d probably shoot 100. That’s no exaggeration. I don’t think I’ve played a par 4 that I couldn’t reach with my best drive and my best 3-wood, and there’s three of them.”

Royal & Ancient chief executive Peter Dawson responded to the complaints with a statement as old as this championship.

“Links golf,” he said. “Tough day by the seaside.”

It was so brutal that two major champions didn’t even bother to finish. Sandy Lyle stopped after 10 holes and former PGA champion Rich Beem made his exit after a 46 on the front.

“It’s the greatest golf known to man,” Beem said. “It was just difficult.”

McDowell considered himself fortunate. The British Open starts at 6:30 a.m. and did not finish until nearly 10 p.m., offering the late starters a chance to tune into the BBC and see how the course is playing.

“I sat at home this morning with my breakfast cereal and cup of coffee in my hand going, ’God, do I really have to go out there this afternoon?’ Obviously, we got pretty lucky,” McDowell said.

He added to his good fortunes on the 499-yard sixth hole, playing dead into the wind toward the sea, when he got greedy with his second shot out of the rough and advanced it only 10 yards. He had to lay up to 9-iron range, hit that 30 feet and made it for bogey.

“If I made double there, I’m obviously feeling pretty bad about things,” McDowell said.

This was a day where a lot of players felt plenty miserable — except for Mediate, of course. Even in the chill of late afternoon, he felt the warmth of the gallery, of another good round and what is shaping up as a magical summer.

“A lot of crazy things have happened the last six weeks,” Mediate said.