Muirfield door is open

For more than 1,800 golfers the Open championship begins not on Thursday week at Muirfield, but tomorrow at 16 courses around Britain.

For the vast majority - all but around 100 - it will end then as well.

Players from as far afield as Australia, India, America, South Korea, South Africa and Nigeria have gathered for the annual regional qualifying competition.

It is the only chance some of them will ever have of competing against the likes of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson.

But even if they succeed at this first 18-hole stage there are another two days of final qualifying to come in Scotland next Sunday and Monday before they realise their dream.

Some have already been there and want to do it all over again - players like Yorkshire’s Steve Bottomley, who in the best performance of his life was third in the 1995 Open at St Andrews.

Gordon Sherry was one of the stars as well that week, but since turning professional his career has hit the rocks just like Bottomley’s.

The Open gives the big Scot another chance.

Television commentator Julian Tutt, who recently turned professional in his late 40s, is playing at Minchinhampton in Devon, while Sherry is at Renfrew and Bottomley at Alwoodley.

At Blackmoor in Hampshire there is an American entrant called Gene Kelley - officials have presumably made sure it is not Maurice Flitcroft in disguise after the Barrow crane driver’s previous false appearances as Beau Jolley and Gerald Hoppy.

Meanwhile, the Open championship engraver will be keeping his fingers crossed that a few of the players competing at Trentham do not go all the way and get their hands on the claret jug.

Engraving the names of Woods, David Duval, Ernie Els or Nick Faldo is fine, but try doing Osasuwen Nomaosiagbon or Oluwadanilare Osarenren (amateur) in a hurry.