Tiger - can he win again?

By Harry Emanuel

The Open Championship

Course: The Old Course, St Andrews
Location: St Andrews, Scotland
Since: 1860
Yardage: 7,350
Par: 72
Lowest Winning Score: 19-under-par Tiger Woods (2000)
Course Record: 63 Paul Broadhurst (1990)
Field: 156
Cut: Top 70 plus ties after 36 holes
Tee Off: Thursday 06:30

Overview

The Open Championship is golf's longest running major and was first played in 1860. This week the 139th Open Championship will be held at St Andrews Old Course in Scotland.

St Andrews is considered the 'home of golf' and the game has been played on this links land for over 600 years. St Andrews is one of nine golf courses on the Open rota and this will be the 28th time it has hosted the Open Championship.

Tiger Woods has won the last two Championships at St Andrews, setting a record score of 19-under-par with rounds of 67-66-67-69 to win by eight shots in 2000. In 2005 he opened with round of 66-67 and never looked back, winning by five strokes from Colin Montgomerie.

St Andrews is also the host course for the Alfred Dunhill Links Pro-Am that takes places each October on the European Tour.

Last Time Out

Last year's Open at Turnberry will be remembered as the one that Tom Watson nearly won at the age of 59. He started the final day with a one stroke lead but after two bogeys in his first three holes it looked as though his hopes of winning a sixth Open Championship had faded.

The lead changed hands numerous times with Ross Fisher and Lee Westwood making fast starts but in testing conditions Watson stayed in the hunt and birdied the 17th to lead by one shot at three under par.

Meanwhile Stewart Cink made a 15 foot putt for birdie on his last hole to take the clubhouse lead at 2-under-par by one shot from Chris Wood. Watson failed to get up and down for par on the 18th to secure victory and a four hole play-off ensued.

Cink won the play off by six strokes to win his first Major Championship and 138th running of The Open Championship.

Course

St Andrews plays to par 72 and measures 7,350 yards from the Championship tees. The course has only two par fives and two par threes and seven of the par fours are less than 400 yards in length.

The first seven holes head out towards the Eden Estuary, then 8, 9,10 and 11 form a loop before the last seven holes run back parallel with the first seven and the 18th green is next to the first tee.

There have been a few changes with the seventh hole reduced by 19 yards and 6 yards added to the 10th. The most dramatic changes have come on the 17th which has been lengthened by 40 yards.

One of the unique features of St Andrews is that many of the holes share the same greens and fairways giving St Andrews some of the widest fairways and biggest greens seen at any Open Venue.

Despite recent rain the ball is still running out on the fairways but the greens are fairly slow.

Fairways

With shared fairways on 14 of the holes the players have wide landing and bailout areas off the tee. The heavily undulating fairways are bordered on the right side by a seven foot cut of intermediate rough.

Outside the shorter cut of rough the high grass looks particularly penal but is very patchy in places and players will often draw a favourable lie. Only very wayward tee shots will end up in the gorse bushes.

The fairway bunkers have high faces and the players will only be able to advance the ball a short way or in some cases simply pitch out sideways.

Length is definitely an advantage as players can take many of the deep fairways bunkers out of play but controlling their ball flight in the wind and leaving the correct angles into the green is more important.

Greens

There are only 11 individual green complexes as 14 of the holes share seven greens. These double greens are some of the largest greens the players will ever face. They are undulating and players will often face putts in excess of 150 feet. Good lag putting will be the key to success.

The greens are slightly raised, surrounded by runoffs area and bunkers. Most of the time players will be forced to play 'bump and run' shots and an imaginative short game is required.

Rain has made the greens much slower than hoped and combined with their size and undulations most players will three putt at least once a round.

They said

"In my mind playing an Open at St Andrews it's a very, very firm, bouncy golf course with incredibly tricky pin positions in terms of its very hard to stop the ball. You can get 10, 12 yards with your first bounce. It wasn't like that the last two days but today (Monday) it seemed a little more like it could be but that depends on the weather in the next few days." - Padraig Harrington

"The greens are huge and you don't know where the pins are so it's hard to prepare thoroughly, other than get a good feel for the course, touch around the greens and get a good feel for those 150-foot lag putts. You laugh, but there's going to be a lot of them." - Phil Mickelson

"Just because it's wide off the tee doesn't mean you can blow it all over the place. You have to hit the ball in the right spots. The Open Champions in the past have been wonderful ball strikers...been very creative players that can really control their trajectory."- Tiger Woods

Horses for Courses

Tiger Woods and Padraig Harrington have won four of the last five Opens between them. Woods went back-to-back at St Andrews and Royal Liverpool in 2005-2006 bringing his tally of Open victories to three.

Harrington also won back-to-back in 2007-2008 at Carnoustie and Royal Birkdale. Harrington is also a dual winner of the Dunhill Links Championship in 2002 and 2006.

Ernie Els also has a very impressive Open resume. In 18 appearances he has recorded one win (Muirfield in 2002), been second three times, registered 8 top 5s, 12 top 10s and never missed the cut with his worst finish a share of 34th.

Key Holes

The 17th more famously know as the 'Road Hole' has been extended in order to negate advances in technology and restore the shot values of the past.

It requires a long straight drive over the side of the Old Course Hotel as the rough on the left side of the fairway is some of the longest on the course and there is out of bounds on the right.

Players will be left with a two hundred yard plus approach shot which demands a low draw to run the ball up and onto the small raised green and avoid the treacherous bunker in front of the green.

Many players have been unhappy with the changes as it was always a difficult hole and this year it could prove to be a treacherous test for the leaders coming down the stretch on Sunday.

Weather

The weather forecast seems to change daily if not hourly. The first day is expected to be damp with winds picking up to 20mph by the afternoon. Strong winds with brighter weather are forecast for the rest of the week.

Conclusion

With heavy rain falling on Wednesday and Thursday the course will not be playing as firm and fast as previous Opens. Windy conditions throughout the week will make this week a stern test of ball striking and the best players in the field should dominate the leaderboard.