Rory McIlroy has had an explosive start to the British Open, the third major of the year, with a round of 66 putting him in first place.

Afterwards he pronounced himself well pleased

"Any time you shoot 66 at the Open Championship, you're going to be pleased," he said.

"We had perfect scoring conditions out there this morning. There wasn't much wind early on and there were plenty of opportunities to make birdies and I was able to take a few of them.

"It's another great start and, yeah, looking forward to getting back out there tomorrow.

"Whenever I go out and play on Thursdays there's not really many expectations. You're going out there and you're trying to find a rhythm and you're just trying to play your way into the round.

"When you go back out on Friday after a good score you know what you can do, so you're going out with some expectations compared to Thursday.

"I think I've just got to approach it like that, and start off trying to hit solid shots the first few holes and play my way into the round, just like I did today."