Wie begins her quest to qualify for Hoylake

Only two places remain to be filled in the Open Championship - one at the Scottish Open and the other at the US Tour's John Deere Classic in Illinois, where the 16-year-old Michelle Wie is again the main attraction.

Places are on offer to the leading non-exempt player, but they have to be in the top 10. Wie would become the first woman to compete in the Open if she made it through, but she has yet to make a halfway cut on the US Tour in four attempts.

With four to play in the second round of the same event last year the teenager, then an amateur, was one inside the cut line, but then had a double-bogey on the 15th and missed out by two.

"I made a couple of bad decisions, but I was only 15," she said. "I can make mistakes when I'm 15. Hopefully, I learned from those mistakes and hopefully I won't do them this year."

Wie has made one cut against men, in South Korea, and has finished third in two of the three women's majors this year.

After enjoying a practice round with the defending champion Sean O'Hair on Tuesday, Wie played down her effort to become the first woman to make a PGA Tour cut since Babe Zaharias in 1945.