At 6.36am Sandy Lyle hit the opening tee shot of the 2018 British Open alongside Andy Sullivan and Martin Kaymer and play is now officially underway at a burnt-out and brown Carnoustie. Paul Dunne is the first of the Irish underway at 7.30am with Shane Lowry 11 minutes later while Rory McIlroy has to wait until 1.53pm to tee it up. Three-time Open winner Tiger Woods gets going at 3.21pm in what is always one of the longest days of golf all year. And you can follow all of that long day (and all four days) on our liveblog which starts at 8.30am. In the meantime you can catch up on Philip Reid's preview from Carnoustie where it's set to be a strategic chess match with many players opting for many different strategies across the Scottish links. Meanwhile, US Open champion Brooks Koepka spoke yesterday of how reliant he is on his Irish caddie Ricky Elliott, particularly on a week like this with the Portrush man's links expertise.
On to GAA and Eamon Donoghue writes in his statistics column this week that Dublin's Brian Howard is very worthy of Paul Flynn comparisons. "Howard's rate of improvement game on game since then has been remarkable. Like Flynn before him, the DIT student is a converted underage midfielder who can operate in either the half forward or half back line. It's an adaptability which has become more and more of a requirement in the modern game," he writes. Meanwhile, away out west the dispute continues in the Mayo women's camp although the board are now confident of an "amicable solution" in the standoff between 12 players and Peter Leahy's management, writes Gavin Cummiskey.
In our women in sport pages Sonia O'Sullivan writes that Irish athletics is ready to scale new heights with last week's World Junior Championship medals a good indication of the way things are going. "With six medals won in the last two weeks, between our youth and junior athletes on the European and World stage, it suddenly feels like Irish athletics is going from strength to strength. We've never had this much underage success before and it also feels like our youth and junior athletes are inspiring the senior athletes to also get out and rise to the challenge," she writes.
Meanwhile, Ireland's women's hockey team head for the World Cup this weekend with the first match to take place against USA on Saturday. The last time Ireland appeared at the World Cup was 16 years ago in 2002 and Johnny Watterson spoke to the team to find out more.
This evening Dundalk will look to book their place in the second qualifying round of the Europa League when they take on Levadia Tallinn at Oriel Park with a 1-0 win from the first leg. In Sweden Shamrock Rovers have their work cut out in facing a one goal defecit against AIK while Derry City need something very special in Minsk after a 2-0 opening leg defeat to Dinamo.
