Pairings to set sparks flying

THE ROYAL & Ancient aren’t generally known for a sense of humour and would never, it was imagined, get up to a bit of mischief.

However, that day may be over when you look at the pairings for the first two rounds of the Open and you see that Thomas Bjorn and Colin Montgomerie have been drawn together.

Ryder Cup teammates they may be. Soulmates? No way.

It may be recalled that they played together earlier this year in the Johnnie Walker Classic in Singapore and Monty walked in the line of a shot that Bjorn was just about to play.

He angrily gesticulated to the Scot to get out of the f****** way and quickly and Monty duly responded in kind.

A number of "pleasantries" were exchanged and at the end of the round, the other member of trio, US PGA champion Shaun Micheel said: "The next time I play with those two guys, I will bring a bell, a whistle and a pair of boxing gloves."

Micheel has been spared the ordeal and instead the "lucky" man is the American Frank Lickliter.

The poor man's chance of a peaceful day is not helped by the fact that Monty and Bjorn have been rather down in the dumps of late, Colin because of the break up of his marriage and the Dane opting out of the Smurfit European Open because his head was all over the place.

The slightest spark could set things off again although each match at the Open is accompanied by a referee who, hopefully, won't need a policeman to help him keep order.

Either way, hopes that Montgomerie can finally end his "major" drought looked pretty good after two rounds at Loch Lomond, not so good after three, and brightened up again after Sunday's 67.

To be fair, he was in pretty serene mood no matter how things were going for him, although Tom Weiskopf, the champion here in 1973, made a fairly pertinent point when he said: "He would be a very popular winner but usually when you come into these majors, it depends on what you have done in the months previously. You just don't find your game in these tournaments. You have to be playing well and have confidence going into them."

The R & A, in their wisdom or otherwise considering some embarrassing scores from previous beneficiaries, invite the former champions from each venue back to play in the Open. Weiskopf propped up the table at Loch Lomond and will hardly do any better this week.

The next Troon champion after Weiskopf was Mark Calcavecchia. It will be recalled how the Australians Greg Norman and Wayne Grady folded in the play-off against the American and how he hit a massive five iron at the 18th to claim the claret jug. Looking back now, though, he believes he won it and Norman lost it at the par three 17th.

"One of the best breaks I got was when Greg made a pretty gross error by deciding to chip from behind the green," he said.

"I think he may admit this today. He hit a beautiful iron, he actually hit it too well and he did his drive on the 18th. There was no grass there, just a couple of little wispy brown pieces of grass and he decided to chip with a seven iron when I would have had my putter out so fast. I told my caddy, I can't believe he's chipping this, and sure enough it went 10 feet past and he missed the return."

Calcavecchia played that afternoon with Ireland's David Feherty who was right in the thick of the battle until the American, in his own words, "flew the ball in the hole" from thick rough when it looked certain to end up in the hay on the other side of the green. Feherty often told me afterwards that he was shattered by that outlandish piece of luck for "Calc" and was never the same afterwards.

Norman insisted he has good memories of that week and said: "I like this golf course. It sets up well for a very good driver of the golf ball and I'm actually looking forward to the week.

"Much Irish focus will concentrate on Ronan Flood, the new boy on Padraig Harrington's bag. It's a first major for him and he is expecting a nervous enough few days.

He busied himself yesterday screwing some new soft spikes into his boss's shoes while Padraig himself asked

Wilson staff to swap the shaft in his driver to something with less flex.

"I want to gauge what that will do compared to what I've been using," he said.

"I've also had some weight taken off a couple of my irons and have asked the Wilson boys to add some weight to an inner portion of the shaft of my putter," he said.

"It's a Wilson 2Ball putter but I'll hardly be using it this week."