The jittery teenager has, as his 60th birthday approaches, become a grandee of the game of golf, but in terms of expectations the career of Sandy Lyle has come full circle it seems.

Following in the footsteps of Colin Montgomerie at Troon two years ago and Mark O’Meara, at Birkdale last year, the former Open champion will be the third player to take on a semi-ceremonial role as he gets his campaign underway at Carnoustie today when, at 6.35am, he strikes the first ball in the last Open for which his 1985 victory qualifies him automatically.

Ironically it was bestowed upon him by one Martin Slumbers, the R&A’s chief executive and while he admitted to some mixed feelings, Lyle is in no doubt that it is an honour worth getting out of bed ridiculously early for.

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“He kind of pointed his finger at me and said, ‘I want to have a word with you’. I thought, ‘Oh dear, what have I done?’ but it was to ask if I’d like to have the opening tee shot this week,” Lyle said of the interruption to a round he was playing a few months ago.

“I very quickly said ‘that would be a lovely idea, thank you very much’. I then said, ‘that isn’t that 6.30am tee-off time, is it?’ and he just sort of smiled and said, ‘yes’.”

The invitation was pleasing in more ways than one as Lyle explained, saying: “I’ve never hit the opening shot before, but I’ve had a few tee times around 6.45am over the years. Last year I think I was third off at Birkdale and it wasn’t the best of weather that morning either with a strong cross wind in just 40 or 50 degrees but I don’t mind an early tee time for links courses. I think you get the best of the greens and a lot of the time the wind isn’t too strong at that time of the day.

“It’s a new tradition and I think the R&A might make more of it as time goes on. I’m one of the earliest to be handed that honour and it’s nice. I’ll see what I can do.” 

It will be the 43rd time he has teed the ball up at an Open Championship and he remembers the first, for which, when still too young to hold a driving licence, he managed to qualify in 1974.

“It was at Royal Lytham with the same club – a 4 or 5-iron – off the par-3 there. I felt a complete nervous wreck. I had played well to qualify a few days before so I was excited. But as an amateur, as I was back then, you don’t have too high expectations.

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“It was about enjoying it as best as you can and shooting as low as you can. I made the first cut – there were two in those days. Unfortunately, I then got stuck in a bunker about the fifth hole and got out of it about five minutes later looking rather red-faced and as though I had the whole world on my shoulders. 

“It was doomsday all of a sudden because it was heading for a 9 or a 10 on that par-5 hole. That blew my chances of making the second cut. It was a bitter-sweet finish as it blew my chances of winning the Silver Medal, but the experience from that event is still lodged in my memory. I played with Fuzzy Zoeller on the third day. He’s whistling away on the first tee, drops the club down and slides it and lines it up virtually over the hozzle.

“I thought he was goofing around but the next thing the ball is away. I thought, ‘my god’. These are the sort of things that stick in your mind.”

As to comparative expectations, 44 years on the man who was, in 1985 at Sandwich, the first Scot to win the Open since Tommy Armour claimed the title at Carnoustie more than half a century earlier, is also the only Scot to have won the US Masters, but boasts a less wanted record in having failed to complete 72 holes in 19 of the 42 Opens he has contested, knows that as he approaches his second golfing childhood they can be no greater than they were when he was a callow amateur.

“As you get into veteran side of it at 60, it would be great to perform well. Tom Watson obviously is in the back of my mind and what he achieved at Turnberry in 2009. That was absolutely amazing,” he noted, before adding with a smile: “It gave me a lot of grief from my dear wife as she was saying, ‘see what age he is, almost 60!”

As to which member of his generation he thinks could, this week, emulate that awe-inspiring performance by Watson, Lyle tipped his former Ryder Cup team-mate Bernhard Langer, pointing out that the already 60-year-old German is “shooting 68s week-in, week-out,” and claiming that “he could contend, very much so.”

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As he managed to do in 1974, his own main target is, meanwhile, to prove himself worthy of being in the field, ideally going the distance over the four days.

“It would mean a lot,” he said of that prospect. “If I do well and make the cut it’s going to be quite an emotional last hole whoever you are. I was quite emotional when I was watching Nicklaus play the last hole at St Andrews. It just gets to you. 

“You might think ‘I’m hardened’ but if you’ve got any bit of sense in there it’ll happen I’m sure. I’ll just take it whenever it happens.”