Boyd will have to wait until 4.21pm before striking his first ball of the day as he bids to improve on his opening-day score of seven over par.

The advantage of such a late tee time is that Boyd will know exactly what he has to do if he is to survive the tournament's midway cut and continue his Open dream on Saturday and Sunday.

With the first two day's top 65 players and those tied with 65th play progressing to the weekend, Boyd sat in joint 79th place after the first day's play.

The good news, however, is that overnight he was just one shot off those sitting in 64th place and below and two shots behind those in 45th place and below.

A further positive is that no great strides have been made at the top of the leaderboard among today's early starters, with Royal Birkdale's tough conditions again keeping the world's top golfers under control.

The Middleton Cheney golfer played alongside South Africa's Thomas Aiken and Australia's Bradley Lamb yesterday, and the trio teed-off at 11.10am on a wet and blustery morning.

Boyd made a great start but dropped a couple of shots on the way out to finish on 36.

He bogeyed the first two holes, had a par on three, birdied four, made par on five, six, seven and nine but dropped shots on the eighth, tenth and 11th.

Further shots, however, were dropped over the latter holes. He parred 13 and 14 but dropped shots on 12 and 15 to go six over.

He had a par on 16 and 17 but dropped a shot on the last to finish seven-over par with a score of 77, eight behind the overnight leaders.