Open returns to tough Carnoustie

Tiger Woods and David Duval have heard reports of tall grass, narrow fairways and wicked weather. Their own experience only affirms what seems to be a unified opinion about this year's Open.

Compared to Carnoustie Golf Links, Pinehurst No. 2 could be a piece of cake.

Payne Stewart was the only player who beat par in the U.S. Open on the domed greens of North Carolina. Four weeks later and an ocean away, it's time to take a deep breath and get ready for what could easily become the toughest test of them all.

"If the weather conditions are like they can be, it might make Pinehurst look easy," Duval said. "Those fairways tend to be narrower than Pinehurst's were. You've got this grass that is 7 feet tall everywhere, and wind and rain and ... it could be very, very difficult."

For its 128th edition, the Open travels to Carnoustie this week for only the sixth time and the first since 1975, when young Tom Watson surged ahead of Jack Nicklaus and Johnny Miller and then beat Jack Newton in an 18-hole playoff.

No one is quite sure what to expect, because the top players in the world were still in high school when Watson won the first of his five claret jugs. Woods wasn't even born.

So why all the concern?

Woods, Duval and Ernie Els are among those who know Carnoustie from when the old Scottish Open was played there in 1995-96.

"I remember when I played the 17th," Woods said. ``One day, I hit a driver off the tee, then a driver off the fairway and the ball barely rolled onto the green. The next day, I hit a 5-iron off the tee and a 5-iron off the fairway.

"I guess you could say it's a very interesting golf course."

Nicklaus called Carnoustie the toughest course he has played anywhere in the world. So did Gary Player, who beat Nicklaus by two strokes in the 1968 Open. So does just about anyone who has experienced Carnoustie in all of its horrific splendor -- the Barry Burn that winds its way through the brutally long closing holes, native grasses that grow waist-high and the blasts of wind off the North Sea, always the best defense in links golf.

The course plays 7,361 yards to a par 71. The final four holes measure 1,688 yards -- none a par-5, one of them a 250-yard par-3 that Nicklaus reached with a driver in 1968.

Els played the Scottish Open in 1996, the year Ian Woosnam won at 1-over.

"There wasn't too much rough then," Els said. ``I hear news from over there that if they play it now and the wind blows, 300 might be the winning score. It's the toughest links you will ever find anywhere in the world."

Woods, for one, is up to the challenge.

He returned to his roost as No. 1 in the world ranking with some of the best golf of his young career. Woods' four-stroke victory in the Western Open was the third in his last four tournaments -- he also beat a world-class field in Germany, then won the Memorial.

The exception was the U.S. Open. Woods has gone nine majors since winning the 1997 Masters with a record score, by a record margin, and setting off expectations that he might eventually topple Nicklaus' record of 18 majors.

Still, he finished only two strokes back of Stewart at Pinehurst. A year ago at Royal Birkdale, a thrilling birdie-birdie finish left him only one stroke out of the playoff between champion Mark O'Meara and Brian Watts.

His game has been retooled, including a more shallow swing plane for better control. The distance is just as great. The confidence never has been higher.

"I'm really pleased at the way I'm scoring in the wind," he said. ``And obviously, on Carnoustie it's not going to be calm. To play as well as I have in the wind really does make you feel pretty good. I think I'm going there on a positive note."

The same holds true for Duval, even though he has flirted with sensational comebacks in the two majors this year but has failed to hold it together. He was within one stroke of the lead at Augusta on Sunday until a double bogey on No. 11. He was tied for the lead at Pinehurst until playing four holes in 4-over.

This is the last chance for Woods and Duval to go head-to-head in a major before their made-for-TV meeting in California on Aug. 2. As much patience, precision and sheer ability that Carnoustie requires, it could happen.

"I think Carnoustie is a type of course that can have an effect like Pinehurst did, where it seems like a lot of the top players are going to be at the top late in the event because it's going to demand very, very good play," Duval said.

A victory by an American would be the fifth in a row, the longest streak in 69 years.

Els might be a good candidate to interrupt that trend. He has been strangely silent since beating both Woods and Duval down the stretch in Los Angeles, but has all the qualities to handle whatever Carnoustie offers.

"I like playing links golf. I have had some good results on links golf courses," Els said. "I have put a lot of working into my game, so maybe it will come off then."

The biggest threat of all could be the newest star in golf -- 19-year-old Sergio Garcia, who won the Irish Open in only his sixth start as a professional, then started off at Loch Lomond with a first-round 62.

All of them could be in for the fight of their lives.

The third major of the year will again present something different. The Masters had rough. The U.S. Open didn't, instead requiring a supreme short game around the shaved, domed greens created by Donald Ross.

All of the elements of links golf are at Carnoustie -- the wind and weather, the heather and gorse, the punishing pot bunkers. But no one, except for Watson and a few past champions in the field like Player and Tony Jacklin, has seen Carnoustie as an Open venue.

After the '75 Open, a poor economy sent Carnoustie into a state of disrepair. It lost so much stock that it was dropped from the Open rotation.

The five clubs in Carnoustie got together to form the Carnoustie Links Management Committee, and slowly began to restore the luster to what has always been regarded as the toughest test of British golf.

It will be on display this week with the claret jug on the line.

AP