Aaron Rai and Richard Mansell aim to make progress at Open

They sit either side of the projected cut line at the end of the first round with Rai on two over par and Mansell on four-over.

American former world No.1 Justin Thomas held the clubhouse lead on three-under for most of the day, but was overhauled by Shane Lowry, who closed on five-under – with major debutant Dan Brown also battling at the top of the leaderboard.

Rai, from Wolverhampton, got his round off to the best possible start when he sunk a birdie putt on the first hole from nine feet.

Five successive pars followed for the former Shropshire & Herefordshire junior before dropping shots at the seventh and eighth holes.

He did pick up a second birdie of the day at the 10th, but two more dropped shots at the 15th and 16th left him on two-over and with some work to do to record his fourth top-10 finish in a row.

Rai hasn’t finished outside the top 20 of a tournament since May, including finishing tied for 19th at last month’s US Open at Pinehurst. And since that major he has finished second, seventh and fourth at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, the John Deere Classic and the Genesis Scottish Open respectively.

Mansell, from Burntwood, is not coming into the tournament on such good form – though he did equal the course record of 61 at The Renaissance Club on his way to qualifying for The Open at the Scottish Open last week.

He is two shots back from Rai on four-under after becoming one of several players – including Rory McIlroy – to fall foul of the eight hole, known as The Postage Stamp.

The 29-year-old, who had just birdied the seventh, found the bunker off the tee and then needed two goes to get out of it before finally managing to navigate the tricky par-three in a double-bogey five.

Three more bogeys – at the fourth, 15th and 17th – left him on four-over ahead of an early start to his second round at 6.57am this morning.

While Lowry, Thomas and Englishman Brown enjoyed their day, some big names were well off the pace – including Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau. McIlroy, who agonisingly missed out on an overdue fifth major title in last month’s US Open, added: “I felt like I did OK for the first part of the round and then missed the green at the Postage Stamp there and made a double.

“But still, felt like I was in reasonable enough shape being a couple over through nine, thinking that I could maybe get those couple of shots back, try to shoot even par, something like that.

“Even though the wind on the back nine was helping, it was a lot off the left. I was actually surprised how difficult I felt like the back nine played. The conditions are very difficult in a wind that we haven’t seen so far this week.

“I guess when that happens it starts to present different options and you start to think about maybe hitting a few clubs that you haven’t hit in practice. Just one of those days where I just didn’t adapt well enough to the conditions.”