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Southport, England • Matt Kuchar, Jordan Spieth, and Brooks Koepka lead the 146th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, setting the pace at 5 under par on Thursday. Spieth and recent U.S. Open champ Koepka made their rounds in the morning while Kuchar, who was 5 under through nine, delivered his impressive round in the afternoon.

Utah's Tony Finau shot an even-par round of 70 Thursday to sit five shots back.

Early on Thursday the lead hovered around 2 under, and Finau's birdie at No. 3 got him within striking distance and he was knocking on the door for much of the front nine, only one back.

Eventually he would settle for a 1-over 35 on the front nine and a 1-under 35 on the back to end the day.

So, in his second Open Championship, what were the 27-year-old's takeaways from his start?

"A lot of mixed emotions, I'm happy with the way I hung in there," Finau said. "I didn't hit the ball my best, that's for sure, but I was able to scramble and salvage an even-par round."

There are a number of variables in links golf between the wind, rain, and deep pot bunkers throughout the sloped fairways, but Finau seemed positive about his start.

"You never know how the course is going to shake up, so even par on a day like (Thursday), I didn't knock myself out of it. That's for sure," said the West High grad.

The winds picked up between 15-25 mph during the day and Finau had to factor in the changing wind directions throughout his round.

Veteran Steve Striker, who finished in the top five at last year's Open Championship spent a few extra minutes thinking about his approach shot into the 18th hole.

"I was indecisive because the wind direction kept changing on me," Stricker said. "But that's part of the game over here in The Open Championship."

Indeed, the wind presents a unique challenge in addition to this already revered course, which players have raved about all week.

"It's hard to trust exactly where the wind blows," Finau said. "I just had a hard time pulling some clubs — a little bit of indecisiveness. I got to clean that up a lot and try and figure where I feel like the wind is and try and execute the best shot you can. Sometimes you try to be perfect and not end up trusting it enough."

Finau dealt with this issue of trust with his club selection most specifically on the par 3s Thursday.

"That was the case a little bit out there on mainly the par 3s and then off the tee I knew the direction. You have to squeeze it in between the bunkers here or you got to lay back, or play in front so it's quite a strategy game playing links golf."

As usual, pot bunkers are a rare but serious hazard for young Americans.

Said Finau: "Sometimes you feel like you can take on the bunker and hit a good enough shot to keep it in between or sometimes you just got to lay back, but when the wind messes with you sometimes you're just not exactly sure how far it's going.

"So I have to do a great job of that tomorrow."

Finau says he's been to Wales for the 2006 Junior Ryder Cup but doesn't have many memories of England itself.

So had he played Royal Birkdale in the lead-up to this Open Championship?

"Not before this week," Finau said. "I played 18 holes for the first time on Tuesday a couple days ago, but I like the way it's set up. I think it's a tough, fair and good test."

Finau arrived to Birkdale at around noon on Monday then got to the course in the garter moon, just in time to play nine holes in the early evening.

Now that Finau has spent the last three days preparing and playing this old course, he mentioned on Thursday the course has an old feel to it that he and his peers love.

"One of the cool things about being at this course, is we as players, we really enjoy the tradition and being part of the history of The Open," Finau said. "We take a lot of pride in that."

On Friday, Finau tees off at 8:54 a.m. MDT. —

British Open

First-round leaders Jordan Spieth 65 -5

Brooks Koepka 65 -5

Matt Kuchar 65 -5

Paul Casey 66 -4

Charl Schwartzel 66 -4