‘ This is the one’

if the sea air awakens the genius in him.

Although there have been moments of magic since he resumed playing competitively after protracted problems with his back he warns his game is not necessarily where he would want it to be in terms of winning a tourna-

At the same time the 14-time major winner -- including three Opens -- likes the look of the course.

“No, no I don’t have to relearn how to play this style of golf because I have played in so many Opens and so many links courses over my career,” he said.

“You don’t get the chance to see Open venues this brown so often but then it was just like this in 2000 (his

Hoylake (his win in 2006), as well.” In a Ryder Cup year the European challenge looksweakby comparisonintheonlymajor played outside the United States.

The likes of Northern Irish star Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose, the in form Italian Francesco Molinari and perhaps a dark horse in Sweden’s Alex Noren, who won the French Open on the course where this year’s Ryder Cup will be contested, look the likeliest to be contenders.

McIlroy for one will be desperate to end four years without a major and disprove those who think even at just 29 the wow factor of earlier years has lost its sheen.

“I’ll just treat it like any other event,” McIlroy told Golf World.

“Prepare the way I normally do and go out and play and see what happens. I’m not putting any pressure on myself.

“My record in the Open Championship’s been pretty good the last

showed what a talent he was as an amateur in the 2008 Open.

Rose admits the Open has never yielded the results he would have liked

-- and wants to set that right.

“I think this is the one that would feel so good, and to have that Claret Jug on the dinner table most nights for the following year after winning would certainly be a treat.”