Ten years after Paul Lawrie splashed through the carnage of storm-tossed Carnoustie to win the Open Championship, it appears that British players are no nearer to ending an appalling run of failure in their home major.

Links golf, almost unique to these islands, is supposed to offer some form of local advantage. Yet going into today's second round of the 138th Open at Turnberry the best that Britain had to offer was a clutch of five players sharing 21st place, four shots shy of Spaniard Miguel Angel Jimenez.

Anthony Wall, Graeme McDowell, Lee Westwood, David Howell and Paul Casey all returned two-under-par scores of 68. Yet ahead of them, besides Jimenez, lay 10 Americans, three South Africans, two Australians, a Columbian, a Canadian, a Fijian, and one Kenichi Kuboya, of Japan, who is ranked 125th in the world.

Rory McIlroy, the 20-year-old from Northern Ireland of whom so much was expected, but who was resuming on one-under-par, admitted: "It would be nice to see a few of us contending. Definitely, it would be great to see a few of us up on the leaderboard come Sunday afternoon."

At this stage, it is difficult to see who is going to make up the "few".

Casey, the world ranked No3 but theoretically the second best player in the field in the absence of Phil Mickelson, admitted he failed to make the most of an electric start which saw him race to three-under after five holes yesterday.

He said: "It was frustrating but this golf course can jump up and bite you very quickly. I was expecting more from my round. It is early days and I can't be too upset but I would certainly like to have had better than a 68."

So would Westwood, who left tournament favourite and playing partner Tiger Woods for dead with three successive birdies from the opening hole, only to spoil his card with a double-bogey at the 16th, where his approach ended up in a burn.

"It's a fair assumption to say I left a few shots out there," Westwood said. "Any time you birdie the first three holes is a great start, but I had a lot of chances from 15 to 20 feet all day."

Howell is returning from a back complaint that has troubled the Ryder Cup star for the past three years, so his score was acceptable. "I haven't played a decent round of golf all year," he said. "I've only made a couple of cuts."

Ross Fisher, so impressive when finishing fifth in the recent US Open, could also be excused for his 69 on a day when benign conditions left Turnberry defenceless. Fisher's wife Jo was due to give birth to the couple's first child on Tuesday, and the expectant father was clearly distracted by the impending happy event. "I made a couple of silly mistakes," he said. "I chose a couple of wrong clubs at the wrong time."

Justin Rose was another to return a 69, Nick Dougherty shot 70 and Colin Montgomerie, unhappy at being caught up in the Sandy Lyle "cheating" row, was on one-over 71 and having to play well today just to beat the halfway cut. Also on one-over were Luke Donald, Darren Clarke and Lawrie.

Former Open champions Lyle, at five-over, and Sir Nick Faldo, on eight-over, are already packing their bags.

If any Brit was expected to wave the flag at Turnberry it was Ian Poulter, who finished a close second to Ireland's Padraig Harrington at Royal Birkdale last summer.

Indeed, Poulter (left) turned up for the opening round sporting a waistcoat in the colours of the Union flag and trousers in bold tartan. Unfortunately, in order to carry off that kind of garb he had to shoot a decent figure, and a five-over-par 75 was far from that.

"I'm disappointed," he said. "It was a poor round. I didn't manage to strike any shot and it was frustrating. I didn't feel good on the golf course and didn't execute any shots. If you are going to do that you are going to struggle. I think it has put me a long way back, for sure. Eleven shots behind, I've got some work to do."

So far as home supporters are concerned, he's not the only one.