Stars gather at Royal Lytham for Open

Woods, McIlroy, Donald and Co. all set to do battle over Lancashire links

The world’s top golfers are gathering on the Lancashire coast ahead of this week’s Open Championship at Royal Lytham & St Annes.

Tiger Woods is the bookmakers’ favourite to add to his 14 majors and succeed his old pal Darren Clarke as the ‘Champion Golfer of the Year’, the Northern Irishman having finally broken his major duck at Royal St George’s last year.

Woods, who played a practice round at the course on Sunday, is followed in the bookies’ standings by Lee Westwood. The Englishman is still searching for his first major title and he, along with world No.1 Luke Donald, is considered one of the most likely players to end a winless run for English players in golf’s ‘Big Four’ which stretches back as far as the 1996 Masters.

Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy is another of those tipped to do well. The 2011 US Open champion was trading at 16/1 as this story went live, followed by the likes of Phil Mickelson, Graeme McDowell, Justin Rose and Sergio Garcia.

In truth, any one of the 150-odd players that tees it up this week will fancy their chances, and why not? The last 15 majors have yielded 15 different champions, whilst the last two Opens have been won by pre-championship long-shots, Clarke succeeding Louis Oosthuizen last year.

However, Opens at Royal Lytham have a habit of identifying the best player in the world. Bobby Locke, Bobby Jones, Tony Jacklin, Tom Lehman, Gary Player, Seve Ballesteros, David Duval: all were considered the best in the game at the time they won at Royal Lytham, so don’t be surprised to see any of the world’s current top four ranked players – Donald, McIlroy, Westwood and Woods – hoisting the Claret Jug on Sunday night.

Whilst the identity of the winner is almost anyone’s guess, one thing is almost guaranteed: scoring won’t be particularly low.

The notoriously tough set-up at Royal Lytham has been made even more penal with thick rough being grown in to ensure that any and all errant shots are punished.

Even Woods, one of the greatest links players of the modern era, found the going tough in his first practice round, telling one American golf writer that he had never seen rough “this thick, this high or this dense.” The three-time Open champion added: “It’s just that you can’t get out of it. The bottom six inches is so lush. The wispy stuff, we’ve always faced that at every Open. But that bottom six inches? In some places, it’s almost unplayable.”

As well as the rough, the field will also have to negotiate no fewer than 206 bunkers. Woods told waiting reporters: “You have to make a decision on the tee what you’re going to do. With certain winds you can clear the bunkers and other winds you can’t.”

The forecast for the week appears to be unsettled. Wednesday appears set to suffer the worst of the conditions but, beyond that, a mixture of sunshine, showers and temperatures in the mid-teens is expected. Woods added: “It’ll be interesting to see when the rain arrives if the wind will be coming from a different direction.”

The stage is set, the players are ready. Let the latest thrilling edition of the world’s oldest and most prestigious professional golf championship begin.

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