R&A rejig course layout for Open

THE chances of Tiger Woods losing a ball with his first shot in this year’s Open Championship — as he did the last time the event was at Sandwich — have been severely reduced.

With less than 30% of all drives finishing on the fairway in 2003, the landing area has been widened by about 12 yards.

Woods started with a triple bogey seven — fellow American Jerry Kelly had an 11 — and ended the week two strokes behind shock winner Ben Curtis.

“Tiger’s lost ball was not an influence — it was the overall statistic of 27-28%,” said Royal and Ancient Club chief executive Peter Dawson yesterday.

The fairways on the 17th and 18th have also been made more user friendly, but the Kent links will be over 100 yards longer for this July’s Open Championship — and yet the par comes down from 71 to 70.

That is because the famous fourth hole — with a huge bunker staring the players in the face as they tee off — has been changed from a 497-yard par five to a 495-yard par four.

While that has been shortened slightly, the third is 30 yards longer at 240 yards, the long seventh goes from 532 to 564 yards and the ninth is up from 388 to 412 yards.

The main alteration on the back nine is to stretch the 15th from 475 yards to a 496-yard par four.