Two Legs Up

GULLANE, Scotland —  Tiger Woods continues his assault on golf’s major championships today at 9:01 a.m., Grand Slam Time.

There will be 155 other golfers teeing off at historic Muirfield as well, some simply overjoyed to be part of the world’s oldest, and some say most prestigious, golf tournament, others intent on preventing Woods from repeating the victories he already has this year in the other two majors--the Masters and U.S. Open.

But once the final putt is stroked over the rolling greens of this 7,034-yard, par-71 links layout late Sunday afternoon, the player who will have the most to say about who lifts the Claret Jug is Woods.

If he plays as he did during his three-stroke victories at Augusta in April and at Bethpage in June, even the world’s top golfers acknowledge that keeping the world’s No. 1 player from his second British Open championship might be nearly impossible.

“Well, we hope Tiger doesn’t perform, and then we all will have an opportunity,” said Scotland favorite son Colin Montgomerie, whose disappointing performance in 12 British Opens includes only one top-10 finish and five missed cuts.

“But if he plays the way he has been, we all believe that the opportunity won’t arise.”

Woods has won eight majors, seven of the last 11, and when he plays well enough in the early rounds to sniff the winner’s check, he wins. He has never lost a major while playing in the final group on Sunday and has won 24 of 26 times on the PGA Tour when leading after the third round.

Woods, whose tee time is 1:01 a.m. (PDT), will be playing competitively for the first time since his U.S. Open victory June 16, a layoff that might offer some hope to his more optimistic competitors, but that worries Woods less than a tap-in birdie.

“I was playing well,” he said. “I’m hitting the golf ball right now; I don’t foresee it to be a problem.”

The course is soft and lush this year, a function of one of the rainiest summers in 40 years. It rained 26 days in June and drizzled continually during practice rounds Tuesday and Wednesday, which means the greens are not yet firm and fast, and balls will not roll unchecked through hard-pan fairways into the rough or one of the 148 bunkers on this 111-year-old layout.

The rough is knee high just off the fairways and around the greens, and so deep in some places that Ian Woosnam could put on a camouflage rain suit and hide undetected in there for a fortnight.

Winning this week will be impossible for anyone who can’t keep his tee shots in the fairway, though because of the moderate length, 200 yards shorter than at Bethpage, most players will play for position rather than distance and hit their drivers only a handful of times each round.

“You’ve got to keep the ball out of the bunkers, as well as the rough,” Woods said. “because it is a penalty for going in them.”

Only Ben Hogan, in 1953, has won the first three majors of the year, but because the British Open and PGA Championship overlapped at that time, he never had the opportunity to try for the Grand Slam. The PGA this year , is at Hazeltine in Chaska, Minn., in August.

Jack Nicklaus was the last player to win the first two majors of the year, then came to Muirfield for the 1972 Open and lost to Lee Trevino. The big question this week is whether there is a Trevino in the 2002 field.

Phil Mickelson is the world’s No. 2 player. He was third in the Masters, second in the U.S. Open and is the last person to win a tour event that Woods led after three rounds--the 2000 Players Championship.

“Phil shot even par on Sunday of the U.S. Open and that’s not easy to do,” Woods said. “I was just able to outlast him because I had a bigger lead.”

Because Mickelson’s record in the British Open has been the worst of all four majors--he has never finished higher than 11th in nine tries--the left-hander has spent more than a year refining his game specifically for this event.

He has worked hard on taking spin off his low shots, so they can get more roll, and on putting in the wind, two elements important to links golf he thinks might make all the difference here.

“Without a doubt, I feel I’m more prepared than I have been for this event,” he said. “This is by far my best chance.”

And he says he is one player who’s looking forward to squaring off against Woods on Sunday.

“I love the feeling of playing in the last round or coming down the stretch having a chance to win,” he said. “That nervousness, that excitement that goes through my mind and body; that opportunity to compete is what I love so much.”

David Duval, the defending champion, won his first major at Royal Lytham in 2001, played with moderate success the rest of the year but has virtually disappeared in 2002. He has missed three consecutive cuts and five of the last seven, which is reason enough for the British bookmakers to make him a longshot to become the first repeat winner since Tom Watson in 1982-83.

Sergio Garcia, who won the British Amateur at Muirfield four years ago, played in the final pairing with Woods in the U.S. Open but slipped to a four-over 74 that left him in fourth place. He finished ninth last year at Lytham.

“I think my game is there. I think I play well enough,” Garcia said of his chances of winning. “But to win a major, it’s not enough playing well. You have to have good breaks at the right time ...

“There are a lot of good players out there who can win and can beat him [Woods]. He just somehow manages to hang in there and not make many mistakes.”

Ernie Els finished third last year, second in 2000 and was fifth at Muirfield in 1992, but he has been struggling lately.

“I have to play a lot better,” he said.

Two-time British Open champion Greg Norman says he wouldn’t be playing here this week if he didn’t think he could win, though he hasn’t won a tour event since 1997. Nick Faldo won the Open the last two times it was played at Muirfield, in ’92 and ‘87, and has begun to find the game that had deserted him the last five years.

But however most of the golfers perform in the next four rounds, it all boils down to one player.

“He’s mentally strong. He’s not worried about competition,” Faldo said of Woods. “Tiger is definitely a step above everybody else.”