All eyes on Tiger

At 9.01am precisely tomorrow the eyes of the sporting world turn to Muirfield and its golfing minefields.

Not for the start of the 131st Open championship - that will have happened two hours earlier - but for the start of one man’s bid to win the 131st Open championship.

When a sport has a world number one who has won eight majors and the 19 players ranked immediately behind him have only 11 between them, the entire crowd could be excused for lining the first hole.

There on the tee they will see Justin Rose, the 21-year-old from Hampshire who thrilled the galleries at Royal Birkdale four years ago in his final four days as an amateur and this season has ignited his professional career with four victories around the world.

But it will not be him most fans will be training their eyes on.

Alongside Rose will be the figure - the invariably smiling figure - of Shigeki Maruyama, one of Japan’s biggest stars.

But to all except the ranks of photographers from the Land of the Rising Sun he is not the star of this show either.

The player who is, of course, is Tiger Woods. Masters champion, United States Open champion and perhaps in four weeks’ time Grand Slam champion.

History beckons again for the 26-year-old who has already staked his claim to be the sport’s greatest-ever performer.

Not since Jack Nicklaus came to Muirfield in 1972 has the ultimate dream of all four majors in one season still been alive at this stage of the year.

Nicklaus came up one shot short, denied by the magic of Lee Trevino, and despite all else the Golden Bear achieved he never had the same opportunity again.

The main advantage that Woods has now is that winning four majors in a row is not something which daunts him.

And why should it - he has done it before, albeit spread across two seasons.

The next biggest advantage he has is that all the other 155 competitors know it.

You can argue until you are blue in the fact about how good players like Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Sergio Garcia and David Duval - this week’s defending champion - are.

You can also say that if the Woods era can still produce shock major winners like Paul Lawrie and Retief Goosen then there must be hope for those higher up the rankings than the Scot and the South African were at the time of their triumphs.

But the fact remains that if he is on his game the American can play a game they are all unable to match.

Sure, the links of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers do not play into Woods’ hands in the way that Augusta National did in April or Bethpage Black did in June.

On both occasions the length of the course cut the list of challengers to Woods to a handful - and then one by one they all fell away.

Top professionals will tell you that when it comes down to the crunch trophies are decided in the head. The mental game is king and Woods wears the crown.

With Nick Faldo having won the last two Opens at Muirfield, Tom Watson the one before that and prior to Trevino it was - going back in time - Nicklaus, Gary Player and Henry Cotton, the alarm bells must be ringing for those who see the trend of ‘superstars only’ in this particular winners’ enclosure.

What they must all remember is that while Woods has won seven of the last 11 majors, he has still lost far more championships and tournaments in his career than he has won.

He can be beaten. It happens a lot. It just has not happened that much in the majors lately and it has not happened at all in them this season.

Mickelson is the next best player at the moment on all the evidence going.

But the left-hander’s never had a top 10 finish at an Open and while he says he expects it to be different this time, we wait to see.

Els was fifth on the course 10 years ago - Faldo’s second win - and, like Goosen and a host of others, has been working with Belgian sports psychologist Jos Vanstiphout to get his self belief to the same level as his talent.

He was poised to make a challenge to Woods at the Masters, but then crashed to an eight on the 13th hole.

There are no similar holes around Muirfield, but there are still plenty of opportunities and places for calamities.

Garcia won the British Amateur here in 1998 and, in the sad absence of Seve Ballesteros, could the time be right for him to add his name to Europe’s list of champions?

Ballesteros finished second in a major at 19 and won the Open at 22. Garcia was second in a major at 19 and is now 22.

And what of Faldo, Colin Montgomerie, Padraig Harrington and Darren Clarke - or even Ian Woosnam a year on from the extra club fiasco that robbed him of his chance?

They will all wake up with dreams.

But for only one man can the dream become reality. He will be drinking from the claret jug on Sunday night.

He could well be a certain Tiger Woods.

The world’s best tennis player Lleyton Hewitt won Wimbledon. The world’s best driver won the British Grand Prix.

The world’s best golfer is in the mood to win the Open at a place where the cream invariably rises to the top.