High rough and narrow fairways suit Woods' game

The Open: Mickelson tailors preparations to links conditions and Clarke feels at home with seaside breeze but world No 1 remains favourite

An indication of how high the rough is here for the 131st Open Championship is that the Royal and Ancient issued an apology yesterday. Not to Tiger Woods or any other player, but the spectators. "I'm sorry," said David Pepper, chairman of the championship committee, "if in one or two areas close to the ropes it is difficult to see over the top of the rough."

While members of the gallery can expect to negotiate some difficult terrain over the next four days, it is nothing compared to that facing the players. To them no apology was offered and nor has any been sought. The full force of a Scottish summer has not produced the links the R & A were hoping for but there are natural compensations.

"It has been very wet this summer," Pepper said. "In a perfect world we would have preferred the course looking more straw-like and for the ball to be bouncing further. In compensation the rough has grown very high. Believe it or not, the rough was all cut in the winter but the wider you go, the worse it becomes. All the comments from the players have been favourable so far."

As they are the ones who have to stand on the first tee and locate the pencil-thin strip of fairway in front of them, albeit a landing area that is greener than it has any right to be, this is a considerable compliment to the venerable links. "They've forgotten a couple of fairways, particularly the first and the 10th," Darren Clarke said. Carnoustie it is not.

While the US Open at Bethpage Black last month featured the modern game of "powerball", this course should offer all the subtleties of seaside golf. Apart from two of the par-threes, the course has largely not been updated to take into the account the effects of technology since Nick Faldo won the second of his titles here 10 years ago.

"We didn't feel it was necessary at Muirfield," said Peter Dawson, secretary of the R & A. "Still, in the modern era, this course is a stern test and a varied test. I think all the golfers will be tested throughout their range of skills."

Some old fashioned virtues will apply this week. Finding the fairways and avoiding the rough will be the first, staying out of the pot bunkers another, while anyone needing a four up the last to win will have to pray for courage and fortune. "There is a lot more strategy and course management involved at Muirfield than other Open courses," said Clarke, the home player most au fait with links golf having grown up at the likes of Royal Portrush.

"If you try to push too hard, you are going to end up making doubles. If you drive it in the rough, you have no chance. There are going to be a lot of two-irons off the tees but then you are going to have a long-iron into the greens. It will make it more difficult to score but at least you will have an opportunity to do so."

If a wider variety of styles can be successful here, compared to the one-dimensional Bethpage, there is clearly one player whose strengths are stronger than anyone else. Woods, who begins his campaign with Justin Rose and Shigeki Maruyama, will hit a lot of two-iron "stingers", can summon up a mighty force should he find the rough and always excels when brain power, as well as brawn, is involved. Even with a four-iron, Tiger suggested he could get extra length off the tee if he "hit the right knoll". That the suggestion of such precision is believable only adds to the mystique.

He is a man on a mission, to win a second Open crown and the third leg of a possible Grand Slam. Winning seven of the last 11 majors does wonders for the confidence. Equally, with the defending champion, David Duval, off form, his nearest challengers are clocking up near-misses at a similar rate. It should not stop Phil Mickelson or Sergio Garcia being in contention again.

Garcia, who at 22 is already one of the straightest drivers of the bigger hitters, won the British Amateur here four years ago. The Spaniard claims his waggling and regripping is a thing of the past after it attracted fearful attention in New York last month. The words "proof" and "pudding"come to mind, especially once the latter is in the pressure cooker.

Mickelson claims he is better prepared for an Open challenge than ever before, having worked on his swing so that he can lower both the trajectory and the amount of spin imparted. Southern California may have doubled for Korea as the set of the television serial M*A*S*H but it makes an unlikely substitute for a Scottish links.

"I spent the last two weeks at the Titleist test centre in Carlsbad," said Mickelson. "They set up a hole for me that with a firm fairway so I could hit shots into the greens where I was landing them short and bouncing them in. There were some tough pins so I had to hook or slice along the ground around the bunkers." Muirfield immediately caught Mickelson's eye as his favourite Open course after his first practice round last Saturday. "It will be a difficult test off the tees when the wind is blowing," he said, "especially with all the crosswinds where you are hitting into half the fairways."

As ever, the weather will dictate much that happens this week. "We are told there is high pressure around," Pepper said. "Tomorrow might be dry and calm, but not very hot. We are threatened with some rain on Friday and reasonably high winds on Saturday." If it is not to be a breeze on the course, let the breeze blow.