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Australian golfer Marc Leishman is cursing himself after a dire first round has left him struggling to make the British Open halfway cut.

Marc Leishman has conceded his dream of claiming the Claret Jug is all but over for another year after being left disgusted with his British Open first round.

Leishman's seven-over-par 78, which included three double bogeys, left Australia's former runner-up a whopping 12 strokes off the pace at Royal Portrush.

"Played terrible," he told AAP. "Shooting seven over in the first round is inexcusable really.

"Got off to a decent start. Hit a couple of bad shots and then the putter went cold and it just sort of went through the whole game and, yeah, it was a shocker.

"I wouldn't be making a living out of it if I had three double bogeys in a round very often."

Leishman's score would have been even worse had he not birdied the eighth and 13th holes.

"It was just a frustrating one. The hole looked very small," he said.

"I actually drove it good enough to have a pretty good score and normally the strength of my game is my irons and they were pretty pitiful, to be honest."

Leishman played in the worst of the weather in the middle of the day but refused to blame the wretched conditions for his first-round flop.

"I feel like I generally play pretty well in this stuff," he said.

"I love the golf course and I was playing pretty good coming in but it was pretty ordinary golf. I deserved a lot of the stuff that I got.

"So I hope it gets really bad tomorrow, weather wise, so I can hope to get myself back in it somehow.

"I've just got to make the cut and you never know what might happen on the weekend, but it's disappointing. Very disappointing.

"It's a long way back from here."