Colin Montgomerie reckons he did the job he had to do in 2005 the only problem was the greatest player there’s ever been won the Claret Jug.
Monty trailed home behind Tiger Woods at St Andrews ten years ago, when it seemed as if Tiger would win an armful of Claret Jugs and smash Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major championships.
However Woods has won just one more Open, at Hoylake in 2006, and the expected flood of major titles dried up just two years later at the US Open of 2008. This year a chastened Tiger has been a shadow of his pomp when he won on the Old Course in 2000 and 2005.
Monty has seen this decline, but he still believes the name of Woods on the leaderboard is more threatening than anyone present at the Old Course this week, and that St Andrews is a place where the former world No 1 now ranked 241st can still thrive.
“If there’s one course suits the fellow this is it,” said Monty. “He can hit the ball anywhere here, which he does and is quite good for him, and he putts well when he gets the juices flowing.
“He knows his way around and knows what he’s doing. I didn’t lose in 2005, he won.
“My job that Sunday was to finish second from the 10th hole in and I did that. He was always going to win that, even if I’d got closer you felt that he would have put the foot to the throttle again and made another birdie because that’s what he did then.”
Woods’ struggles with his game in recent times, and Monty believes that the intimidation factor is no longer as great as it was.
“It was the one score you looked for,” he said. “In 2005 he started well, I think he was 67 or something, his name was on top of the leaderboard when I went out for my first round and that was definitely the wrong name you wanted there.
“It’s not the same now, is it? But the first five holes of the tournament are the most important.
“You have got to be a couple under, birdie one of the first three holes and then birdie the fifth. If he can do that then he will get the juices flowing and get the competitiveness back; he will start to think he can do it and there is no reason why he can’t as he putts as well as anyone when he gets it going.”
Yet the power Tiger bullied the field with in 2005 is no longer unqiue, argues Monty.
“You could always sense, especially on the back nine into the wind, that he had so much power compared to everyone else. He could get by trouble that I was trying to feed my way through.
“Today he is not the longest by a long, long way and he is not the straightest by a heap more! He has got to get the putting going to make up for it.”
If you don’t hit St Andrews’ massive greens in regulation, you’re played very badly, reckons Monty.
“Really, it is a putting competition and always has been there and Tiger was the best putter in 2000 and 2005 by a mile.
“Tiger can’t hit the greens from where has been hitting it on other courses, .but at St Andrews he knows he can hit it miles off line and still be ok.
“It will be interesting. It is more open than it has been for a long time. On Thursday, the wrong name for people on the leaderboard would probably be Jordan Spieth at six under.
“But it would not be anything like as intimidating as Tiger was. I don’t think Spieth knows St Andrews that well. I hope he gets a couple of tractors from John Deere for playing their event at the weekend!”