Twenty-two former Open winners, including 88-year-old Sam Snead, will take partin a four-hole Champions’Challenge event on the Old Course today.
Snead, winner of the 1946 Open at St Andrews, will play with Nick Faldo, Ian Baker-Finch and Justin Leonard.
Jack Nicklaus, three-times Open champion, who is making his final appearance at the championship this week, will team up with his old rival Tom Watson as well as Roberto deVicenzo, the winner in 1967.
The first team will be Tom Weiskopf, Tom Lehman and Paul Lawrie, playing at 4:40pm. They are followed by the Nicklaus, Watson, de Vicenzo team at 4:52pm. Peter Thomson, Mark O’Meara, Sandy Lyle and Mark Calcavecchia play at 5:04pm, with Bob Charles, Bill Rogers, Nick Price and John Daly off at 5:16pm.
Snead, Faldo, Baker-Finch and Leonard are scheduled to tee off at 5:28pm, with Gary Player, Lee Trevino, Tony Jacklin and Seve Ballesteros making up the final team at 5:40pm.
The teams will play over the first two and last two holes of the Old Course, with the contest decided by best-ball scoring.
The bookmakers SportingOdds.com make Tiger Woods a 25-1 shot not to make Saturday’s third round. Woods, who is in phenomenal form and won the US Open by 15 strokes a month ago, is only 12-1 to win this Open by more than five.
A series of alternative bets are on offer, with Jean Van de Velde - last year’s nearly man following his last-hole disaster when poised to win the Open - at 33-1 to card another triple-bogey or more on the 18th at StAndrews.
Jesper Parnevik, who has three times led in the final round of the Open but finished either runner-up or fourth, is quoted at 20-1 to throw the title away one more time.
Open champions, past and present pose for an historic photograph. Allsport.
