You’ve not seen the last of me yet, says Seve

Charlie Mulqueen, St Andrews

Former St Andrews’ champions abounded, the great Australian Peter Thomson, who won here 50 years ago, Seve Ballesteros, ruled out because of an ailing back, Nick Faldo who is exercising his right to chance his arm while also doing his thing for ABC television when opportunity allows.

Jack Nicklaus’s admirers were so many and so keen that they couldn’t wait for his official interview this morning and cornered him in the locker room. It was, of course, too good an opportunity for Jack to refuse!

Thomson is like Nicklaus in that he professes a love for St Andrews but doesn’t go a whole lot further. He isn’t afraid to criticise, suggesting the revamped 4th “doesn’t need a tee, it needs a fairway.” Oddly enough, given his traditional instincts, Thomson has no problems with the stretching of the 14th to 618 yards even though the tee is now located within the boundaries of the neighbouring Eden Course!

“In recent times, to get a bit of length on the Old Course, you couldn’t do it within the old boundaries,” he mused. “But it was staring me in the face. If we took some territory from the New and Eden courses, then a whole new vista opened up and that’s essentially what has happened. If it is using other courses, so what? It is stopping the Old Course becoming obsolete.

“The extension, and the adjustment of the ball which must happen in a few years, will bring it back to where it was.”

Ballesteros has had his personal troubles of late, principally with the collapse of his marriage. But yesterday he was sympathising with the people of Britain and London after last week’s atrocities.

Seve withdrew from the Open a few weeks ago when, by coincidence, the man allotted his place was none other than his Ryder Cup partner of many great victories, Jose-Maria Olazabal.

Ballesteros also revealed that he has appointed Olazabal as his captain of the continental side in September’s Seve Trophy match and that he had: “Done everything possible to be ready for this week. Not having played any competitive golf for a year and a half, I just thought it was too difficult. I won’t talk about others who might follow my example, I can only think about myself. It will be nice to say goodbye to Jack Nicklaus and to say thank you very much for what you have done for the game of golf.”

Seve, now 48, doesn’t dismiss his prospects of playing the Open again: “I don’t want any of you writing that this is the goodbye of Seve Ballesteros. I’ll be back but when I don’t know.”

Faldo had a scare on Thursday when his daughter was in London and he was unable to contact her for several hours. His fears were duly allayed and Nick made his way by a loaned Rolls Royce to St Andrews and yesterday had a practice round with Nicklaus. Just as Ernie Els made light of my suggestion that somebody could shoot 59 here if the wind didn’t blow, Faldo added; “No, no, the golfing gods will strangle them on 17, just in case.”

As for the changes to the course, Faldo gave his general approval, stressing that “We’ll have to have our thinking caps on at 12, 13 and 14. I don’t think it sets up for Tiger but obviously he is the favourite. He’s won here, he’s come on a mission. He beat my St Andrews record of 18 under in 2000 and he wasn’t worried about winning the Open, he wanted to beat my score. If the wind isn’t there, he can beat that mark, too, because it’s short going out and they’re going to have to protect it with some serious pins.”

As for Woods going another 72 holes without finding at least one of the 200 odd bunkers on the course, Faldo said: “This is the strategy. You must have respect for the bunkers. When I won, I hit it in one. That’s the whole key. You get under the lip and you have to come out backwards. I hear he’s had two practice rounds and still hasn’t been in a bunker. But that doesn’t mean anything. Practice is for fun.”

And the prospects of a European winner? “We’ve got plenty of players. It’s who’s got the whatever we want to call it, the 15th club to finish it off,” he said. Good point, to be fair, and no doubt we’ll hear many more sage words from Faldo once ABC click into action. Peter Alliss move over!