The worlds best get to grips with Ailsa

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World No.1 Tiger Woods began his preparation for The 138th Open Championship with a practice round on the Ailsa course yesterday.

Accompanied by the R&A’s Chief Executive, Peter Dawson, for the first two holes of the round. Tigers first experience of the ‘tweaked’ Ailsa course was summed up by Dawson, “I think he realised what is obvious to a blind man, you need to keep the ball in the short grass”.

Woods, who took four and a half hours to play the 18 holes of Ailsa, emphasising the term ‘practice round’ by focusing much of his play on the greens of the course with numerous one-handed putts on various holes, including a staggering 53 practice putts on the second green.

Even the world No.1 wasn’t immune to the sinking feeling of loosing a ball as his tee shot sailed into the right rough of the 2nd fairway to be swallowed up by Ailsa and never recovered. As he finished up on the 18th green and made his way past a frenzy of questions, his simple response to the course was “The course is in great shape”.

Although other players taking the time to get acquainted with the course were equally complementary about Ailsa, there was an underlying tone that whoever is going to win the Tournament will need to play the golf of their season to claim victory. Former Ryder Cup player David Howell commented “It is the best conditioned Open course I have ever seen but it is tough,”. He continued “It is not Carnoustie in terms of straight-forward difficulty, or in the way the rough was in 1999, but it is a difficult golf course. There are no obvious birdie opportunities, the rough is up. The fairways – well, they are not single file but they’re not double file either. You stand on the tees sometimes and all you can see is hay. Other than that, I’m really looking forward to playing it.”

In typically jovial fashion, current world No.7 Henrik Stenson shadowed Howell’s comments following his own practice round, “The course is lovely, fabulous, although the lighthouse is smaller in real life than it looks in the photographs”
Whether Woods, Stenson, Howell or any other of the worlds leading players claim victory next weekend, they will have done so on a truly challenging course, a course that will be a test the players and is reflective of the quality that is needed to become an Open Champion!