But you sense that they are eager to hand over their hearts to the Fifth Beatle. They admire excellence and craftsmanship, and so all Woods has to do to win them over is win their national golfing championship. That would be the British Open, which begins Thursday at Royal Troon, a gray and melancholy course in the sea-scoured west of Scotland. Troon is far more difficult than Augusta National, which Woods left in flames when he won The Masters in April, and, if more forgiving, certainly no less punishing than Congressional, site of last month's U.S. Open, in which Woods got thoroughly schooled and finished 19th. British Open golf is a bouncier brand than Americans are accustomed to, and on British Open courses the ball is played on the ground almost as much as it is in the air.
Proper trajectory is crucial.
In the process, you leave yourself vulnerable to the vagaries of terrain and luck. That's not the question. The question is whether he can play it skillfully enough to win the oldest championship in golf, in the place that gave birth to the game, on a course he had not seen until this past week. Being long and inordinately high with your approach irons does not automatically reduce your chances in a British Open. After all, Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson hit the ball unusually high, and between them they have won eight British Opens.