Tiger - feeling his way.
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Ernie Els, convincing winner of the Barclays Scottish Open yesterday, may restrict his Open Championship preparation to a mere 36 holes at Royal St George's. For his nearest rival for the Claret Jug, Tiger Woods, it may need at least twice as many holes to familiarise himself fully with the vagiaries of the Sandwich course.
Els commented: "I will stick to my routine. I'll settle in with my family on Monday and do only nine holes; I'll do 18 on Tuesday and work hard on my game, then probably nine on Wednesday and rest a little more. You can do too much and I've already had a tough week."
For Woods who played Royal St. George's for the first time yesterday with Charles Howell III, after flying in from Florida revealed that he might need several rounds to get a feel for a course rated probably the most chellenging on The Open rota.
"There's a lot of blind shots and on a couple of holes I didn't know which way to go. And I can't even remember which they were," said Woods, who had watched a video of Greg Norman's record=breaking win here in 1993.
Recent cloudless skies and a drying wind has left the par-71 course parched and fast-running, much as The Old Course at St Andrews was when Tiger won the Millennium Open in 2000.
The main difference, however, said Woods, is the humps and hollows in the driving areas on the fairways and the variable bounce. Even the straightest of drivers will struggle to maintain a 50 per-cent success rate in fairways hit, especially if the forecast wind exceeds ten miles an hour.
"The fairways are the most severe I've seen, the slopes are steep." Woods said. On the 458-yard 17th, he drew a 2-iron gently to the middle of the fairway but his ball kicked violently into the left rough. On 18, undecided which club to use off the tee, he switched from driver to 2-iron before striking a 3-wood into a fairway bunker.
He aims to take a second look at the course today before brushing up on the different shots he'll need to challenge Els' confidence-boosted defence of the title.
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