Star names slip though exemption net

ROLL up, roll up. Come and see some of your favourite golfers in a situation they have never faced before – because the situation has not existed before.

When the Royal and Ancient Club, organisers of the Open, decided to bring in a series of international qualifying competitions for next month's championship they could not have envisaged that such an array of stars would be involved.

But at Sunningdale next Monday 120 players, including three Major winners, 14 Ryder Cup team members and 50 tournament winners will be going for what is likely to be no more than 15 places in the starting line-up at Royal Troon.

And since this is a 36-hole event in one day, with a play-off probably necessary at the end of it, play is starting at 6.30am and may well go on beyond 9pm.

Such is the quality of the field that the fairways on both the Old and New courses will be roped off and a player of the quality of Sam Torrance is only on the reserve list at the moment.

The list is worthy of filling a leaderboard at a Major, yet somehow they have all slipped through the net in the various exemption categories provided.

The Major winners are Bernhard Langer, Jose Maria Olazabal and Ian Woosnam - five Masters titles between them, 24 Ryder Cup caps and 139 professional victories.

All of them have come close to the Open victory which would have spared them this and given them a place in the event until they are 65. Langer was second way back in 1981 to Bill Rogers and to Seve Ballesteros in 1984, as well as being third four times.

Olazabal was third behind Nick Faldo in 1992, while Woosnam was third behind Greg Norman in 1986 and again behind David Duval three years ago the famous occasion when he was told by his caddie on the second tee of the final round, when he had just birdied the first at Lytham and was joint leader, that there was an extra club in his bag. It meant a two-stroke penalty.

Then there is Colin Montgomerie, seven times the European Tour's leading money-winner and twice a runner-up in the US Open, but outside the world's top 50 and outside Europe's top 20 when it mattered for this year's Open being held, of course, on his home course.

Winning over £15million has not saved the Scot from this and, having last week missed his first Major since 1991, to fail to make it into the Open would be another blow.

It is only two years ago that Montgomerie was Torrance's "rock" at the Ryder Cup, but five members of that side are now forced to try to qualify. Langer, Pierre Fulke, Niclas Fasth, Jesper Parnevik and match-winner Paul McGinley are the others.

The former Ryder Cup men to add to the list are Gordon Brand Jnr, Peter Baker, Olazabal, Mark James, Jarmo Sandelin and Jean van de Velde, who needed only a double bogey on the final hole at Carnoustie five years ago to avoid all this.

And then there is Justin Rose, leader of the Masters for the first two days at Augusta in April and desperate to make it through the qualifier so that he can press his claims for a Ryder Cup debut this September.

When you add the likes of Argentina's Eduardo Romero and Angel Cabrera and this year's winners Marcel Siem and Thongchai Jaidee to the mix, plus 2002 runner-up Thomas Levet, you realise that many tournament sponsors would like to have such a field.

But exciting and cut-throat though Monday will be as it will be in the American equivalent in Washington featuring a host of well-known US Tour names - it is not quite do-or-die and those who fail will live in hope for a little while longer.

Places are also available to the leading non-exempt player at next week's European Open at the K Club near Dublin and the following week's Scottish Open at Loch Lomond, while a mini-Order of Merit is currently in operation from which two more spots will be awarded.

Spare a thought too for Mark Roe, who last year at Sandwich would have been joint fourth with a round to go and paired with Tiger Woods were it not for the scorecard mix-up which resulted in him and Parnevik both being disqualified.

Roe may never have such an opportunity again. But he has a life outside of golf and is thinking of pulling out of the qualifying tournament at Sunningdale to spend the day with his wife and children instead.

He may not like the idea of 36 holes on a Monday, but others apparently do. The United States Golf Association are thought to be considering the same thing for next year's US Open.