Birkdale Shapes Up to Be the Battle of the Bogeys

When the Australian Robert Allenby said last night: "I think if anyone gets even par tomorrow, that will be pretty special," I thought it was something of an exaggeration. But the early scores this morning suggest even Allenby's thoughts underplayed just how awesomely fiendish the course is - particularly in today's driving rain and wind (I thought there was a thunderstorm overnight, until I realized it was just the gales howling by my bedroom window).

Allenby had proposed that rain may actually aid the golfers – "it will soften the fairways and greens, making it easier to land on them" - but that is not borne out by the scoreboard in front of me. Of the 15 players on the course, only the Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Gonnet is not over par after playing more than one hole. Nine of the 15 bogeyed the first (considered to be one of the easier holes), and it took a combined 25 holes before America's Lucas Glover recorded the first birdie at the par-3 fourth. At time of writing, there are no other red numbers on the board.

The big hitters are still to come, of course - and the tournament has received a boost with news that Padraig Harrington is fit to tee off - but it is hard not to agree at least in part with Allenby, who told me golf is becoming boring because courses are too hard and deny sufficient birdie opportunities. He compared the Open's plight to that of the Masters, with both following the lead of US Opens past (Torrey Pines an honorable exception) in terms of course set-up.

"I was just having a chat with Ian Baker-Finch recalling that my first Open was in 1991 when he won it, and I played a couple of practice rounds with him then," Allenby explained last night. "But the golf course has changed so much since. They've put more tees back and tightened the fairways up. It's funny how the US Opens have really set the standard for all tournaments now throughout the world. I know on the US tour it's like playing the US Open every week. They firm up the greens, narrow the fairways and grow the rough. Now the British Open is doing that as well.

"Augusta in the last two, three, four years has just got boring. When I played my first one in 1996 it was so full of life, and 12 years later there's no life at Augusta anymore. That's a shame as it's one of the nicest golf courses in the world and people love seeing birdies there, but the greens are now so firm and the ones we used to hit seven-irons into we're hitting four-irons into now. They think technology is ruining the game, but it's not the technology.

"The reason golf is getting a little bit boring is we can't shoot those 15-unders to win tournaments. We're lucky if we shoot under par and, if the wind stays the way it is, it's going to be a tough, tough golf course this week."

The last sentiment was echoed by Tom Watson, the elder statesman of the field at 58 and its most decorated player with the most Open wins, five, and major victories, nine. Although he told me last night the course is in "wonderful shape", he admitted it is also "extremely tough" and thought the winning score would be "about par" on Sunday. However, to achieve that the R&A may have to tinker with the course to make it more forgiving, particularly the 499-yard par-4 sixth hole. "It's pretty ferocious," Watson said, before grinning, "but when they move the tees up, there will be a lot of them reaching the green in two."

This is same the hole about which Geoff Ogilvy said in our interactive guide: "I'd take four eight-foot putts for par right now." Yet when quizzed about the possibility of making the course easier by bringing tees up, R&A chief Peter Dawson was adamant that is not in his thinking.

"It'll be like every championship we have; there will be a number of players playing extremely well and scoring very well, and some will struggle. We'll just have to wait and see who they are. I'm not worried it'll be too hard. If the wind is this strong, I'm sure we'll be favouring the front end of the tee rather than the back. But we've got no plans to go to a forward tee, no," he said yesterday.

The players' struggles on this opening morning and the words of Allenby and many more like him may yet convince Dawson otherwise. What would you rather see on Sunday afternoon - the tournament being won by the player with the most birdies or least bogeys?