If history is any guide, there can only be one winner of the 138th Open Championship, which tees off on Thursday.
Turnberry has a good claim to be regarded as the most picturesque of all the venues on the Open rota, but what really makes local chests swell with pride is the Ailsa Course’s unrivalled ability to produce champions recognised by their peers as the world’s best.
Tom Watson, who provided Turnberry with its finest hour when he edged Jack Nicklaus in the 1977 Duel in the Sun, Greg Norman with his first major win in 1986 and Nick Price eight years later: all of them giants of the game.
If the record is to continue, the only outcome can be a Tiger Woods triumph and the world number one, a conscientious student of the history of the sport he dominates, acknowledges there can be no excuses if he is not at the top of the leaderboard by the end of Sunday afternoon.
”The guys that have won before here were some of the best ball strikers of all time, or certainly in their eras,” he said.
”It shows that you just can’t fake it around this golf course. You just have to hit good golf shots.”
Nobody does that quite as well as Woods and, having finished tied for 6th place in both the first two majors of the year, The Masters and the US Open, there is a sense that major title number 15 is now a little overdue for the world number one, who has won three times on the US tour since coming back from reconstructive surgery on his left knee.
Woods had only just gone under the knife when last year’s Open was contested and he was too preoccupied with the initial, painful stages of his rehabilitation to pay too much attention to the action at Royal Birkdale.
He did however take in the climax of a tournament that saw Padraig Harrington clinch his second consecutive Open title with a nerveless display over the closing holes.
”When it really mattered, Padraig had to shoot a number and he did,” Woods said of the Irishman who, a year later, is embarking on his quest for a third straight Open win beset by doubts over a swing that he is attempting to reshape.
The result, to date, have not been great: six missed cuts in his last seven outings on the US and European tours tell their own stories.
Despite the doubts in his mind, the Irishman says he feels close to turning the corner and is confident that, if he puts himself into contention, he will stay there.
”The one thing I know is if I get in the position, I can win,” he says, justifiably given that he followed up last year’s Open triumph by winnning the US PGA.
Woods and Harrington have both identified driving, or more accurately strategy off the tee, as one of the keys to victory on a layout ringed by rough that has been allowed to grow thick and tall as a result of an unusually wet and warm spring on Scotland’s southwestern coast.
Woods, who famously used his driver only once in 72 holes when he won his third Open title at Hoylake three years ago, suggested the longest club in his bag could be equally idle here if the wind dictates it.
But he also acknowledged that more benign conditions will tempt a lot of players to try and carry the fearsome fairway bunkers in pursuit of positions to attack the pins.
As Harrington put it: ”There will be rewards for guys who hit the ball long down the fairway because shorter irons will lead to birdies but with the rough the way it is, you want to hit those fairways at all costs.”
The premium on long, straight driving has convinced many that Lee Westwood is the most likely man to become the first home winner of the world’s oldest major tournament since Paul Lawrie won at Carnoustie in 1999.
Paul Casey, currently ranked three in the world, and Ian Poulter, the runner-up to Harrington last year, also look capable of joining the ranks of major winners but it is hard to make a compelling case for anyone other than Tiger. — AFP
