Tailor-made for trigger-happy Tiger
Love it or hate it, no Open venue carries anything like the same cachet as St Andrews.
Ernie Els admits he would: "happily ride off into the sunset" if he could win here and certainly there is something special about previous champions from the Home of Golf, players like Tiger Woods, John Daly, Nick Faldo, Seve Ballesteros and Nicklaus.
That's why you suspect the latest golfer to hold the claret jug aloft will be one of the bigger names and not a "springer" like Todd Hamilton at Troon 12 months ago or Ben Curtis at Royal St Georges in 2003.
Els, champion at Muirfield in 2002, insists that: "St Andrews is tailor-made for Tiger," and even at the prohibitive price of 11/4, it is difficult to look beyond Woods. He certainly looks set to capture his second major of the campaign, his tenth in all and so narrow the "majors" gulf between himself and Nicklaus to eight.
Woods readily acknowledges that the course set-up suits him nicely ("a longer hitter has an advantage if he's hitting it well") even if he shares the doubts expressed by, among others, Ireland's big hope Darren Clarke, about the 4th, where the tee has been moved back into the neighbouring New Course and the hole stretched to 480 yards.
"280 yards into the wind is not an easy carry," noted Woods. "There is no fairway," complained Clarke whose odds have been slashed to 22/1.
If two of the game's longest hitters are worried about reaching the short grass, what hope those who are much shorter off the tee!
However, Woods has no intention of allowing the 4th or any other aspect of the altered course to worry him. Instead, he'll be concentrating on staying out of the 112 bunkers that litter the Old Course, the near miracle that he accomplished in his runaway nine shot victory in 2000.
"I got lucky a few times then," he admits. "I should easily have been in three to five. The ball just happened to hop over a bunker and catch a side and kick left or right of the sand.
"It's kind of funny, you walk along and wonder why they put a bunker there. And all of a sudden, the wind switches and you go, oh, there it is. That's the beauty of playing here, you always discover new bunkers."
If Woods was largely positive about the course and its many alterations, one of his chief rivals Vijay Singh, who has slipped out to a very generous 16/1, was almost merciless in his condemnation.
Six years ago, Carnoustie was dubbed "Carnasty" by the players and the Fijian has been drawing comparisons, somewhat unreasonably, with the "Tiger-proofing" of the Old Course.
"It's Carnoustie all over again," he raged. "The course needed changing but I fear they have overdone it. There are some holes where a yard can make the difference between being unplayable and somewhere you can make birdie.
"The rough is not very consistent and if the wind blows hard, it will get really tough and par could be a good figure. Many will struggle to make the fairway at the 4th while the second shot at 14 is a monster."
Words like these will not go down very well with golfing fans who all too often see Singh and co make millions from overwhelming soft golf courses and whinge all too readily when they are presented with a serious test such as Pinehurst for last month's US Open or indeed the constantly changing Augusta National for the Masters.
Vijay's negative approach can hardly help his chances and contrasts unfavourably with Phil Mickelson's observation that "the toughness of this course is in the weather. That's where its greatness lies because it's designed to play in wind and rain. That's when the bunkers, the swales and the hollows come into play."
But if the wind stays away, the gifted left-hander suspects it could pave the way for another Curtis-Hamilton type of champion. "There's a good chance a lot of guys will do well if the weather stays like this," he remarked.
Should that come to pass, perhaps two players to keep a close eye on may be the newly crowned Scottish Open champion Tim Clark of South Africa and the Australian Nick O'Hern. Neither is flamboyant type but consistency is central to their games nor do they ever seem to get too flustered on the golf course.
Ernie Els (second favourite at 9/1) goes into battle with a similarly sensible attitude to Mickelson: "They've added length to some of the holes and the rough on the 17th is as high as I've ever seen it but I think they have restored many of the old challenges."
Sergio Garcia leads the European challenge while Clarke is clearly Ireland's brightest hope in the absence of Padraig Harrington. The other Irishmen in the field are Paul McGinley, Graeme McDowell, Peter Lawrie and British amateur champion Brian McElhinney from Donegal.
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