THE crowds milling around the first tee gave an inflated sense of the celebrity of Martin Laird.

Immediate impressions that the 30-year-old Scotsman had become the Caledonian hero of the hour, the unmistakeable great tartan hope, were dispelled by the realisation that the punters were staking their claims on pieces of turf in East Lothian early as a chap named Tiger Eldrick Woods and Lee Westwood of England were to tee off 10 minutes later.

The Scot with the best chance of taking the 142nd Open made his major, ruinous impression just 40 minutes after striking his first shot yesterday – he was later the victim of a severe ruling on the back nine – but he could bask in the burst of patriotic applause as he stepped on to the tee.

Laird could be forgiven for facing an Open Saturday with some apprehension. Last year at Lytham, he was in an excellent position for the weekend with a 70 followed by a 69.

His subsequent 82 was less impressive. His 81 yesterday was similar in terms of score, but more wounding in terms of misadventure.

The 18-hole ordeal was made exquisitely painful by Laird's excellent start. He surveyed the expanse of a wonderful links course with the proprietorial outlook of, well, a laird.

His initial steps were sure, even promising. A steady par and then an opportune birdie saw him just one stroke off the lead.

He then encountered the sort of happenstance that makes Ian Poulter's "windmill and clown face" comments seem restrained. It was not that the third hole at Muirfield was playing with a wilful capriciousness or that the tee shot demanded two ricochets and a run up a ramp and through a narrow aperture in the manner of crazy golf. No, it was instead the travails of Laird that recalled those days in seaside funparks. The best that can be said for the unfortunate lad is he got the ball into the hole. Eventually.

Thus a golfer of talent, touch and brilliance could only be praised for perseverance. It was a hole that began badly, continued badly and ended, after extra-time and penalties, with a nine on his scorecard.

A public examination of the grisly detail seems an intrusion into private grief. At the risk of raising the ire of Lord Justice Leveson, this correspondent records the following so the full horror can be revealed, so that earnest hackers preparing for the trials of 18 holes on a Sunday can weep in recognition.

Readers are warned that the following contains scenes of an upsetting nature and flashing lights, though the latter mostly occurred within the napper of Laird.

First, he missed the fairway right off the tee. He then hit his second shot from the high rough.

He did not know exactly where this ball went, so he hit a provisional. He found his original ball, only it was deemed unplayable.

Laird then dropped on to the grass on a pathway, but his fourth shot headed into high rough. He swung at it, but missed.

The ball dug deeper into the rough and he declared it unplayable. He played his seventh shot on to the green. He then missed a putt. He then holed a putt. The massed sigh of relief in the stands sucked in the tide of the Firth of Forth. Laird bent to retrieve the ball from the hole and most observers were surprised he stood up.

The Glaswegian had just gone from a viable contender to an also-ran, albeit one who will tonight pick up at least a five-figure sum.

Determined to keep on track, Laird extracted a birdie from the fifth, but bogeys on the sixth and eight ensured he had taken 41 blows to reach the turn. The anguish, however, was not at its end.

On the 10th, Laird found the rough with his second shot. He later insisted he had called out that he was about to identify his ball, placing a tee on the ground and turning the ball slightly to find his mark.

Walking up the 16th, he was informed by an official he had been penalised under rule 12:2 which requires the player to inform his fellow competitor or the referee that he was about to put his hand on the ball.

"That pretty much deflated me," said Laird who could have been forgiven for feeling like a burst ba' after what happened at the third hole. "I then bogeyed 16 and double bogeyed 17."

He added: "I don't think the expression rubbing the salt into wounds would be enough to describe it."

Of the incident, he emphasised: "I said: 'I am going to identify my ball' but I didn't shout across the fairway loud enough so Dustin [Johnson, his playing partner] could hear so that was deemed a one-shot penalty."

He added: "Obviously No 3 was a killer, but I didn't think I was out of the tournament."

The world No 49 then paused for a moment of reflection after a harrowing afternoon. "My warm-up today on the range was the best all week. I striped it. I was feeling good. I was calm. I was enjoying it."

Then came the third hole. And then came the 10th. It all added up to 81 and a missed opportunity to contend on the last day and discover an extraordinary degree of celebrity.