The form man at this year's Open Championship is obviously Ernie Els.

He won the title at Muirfield three years ago, he nearly won at Royal Troon last year and those two exertions were fuelled by his affection for seaside golf.

"And I'd love to do well at St Andrews," he said, thinking back to his second place in the Millennium Open.

"I know this course as well as anybody. I know its unique design and I know how it alters, according to the weather. I'd love to do well here this week."

He had done well at Loch Lomond last week but was undone by his putting. One double-bogey had derailed him and as he said: "you walk off with a 67 and it feels like an 87."

So he has put his putting action under the microscope, found a few faults, made a few adjustments and now he's working on the pace of the greens.

The Old Course, he announced, is playing a lot longer than of yore.

"You can really see the changes and especially on the 14th," he said. " Normally you can get there, even with a stiff breeze in your face but yesterday it was a three-shot par-five. And the 13th was a lot different.

"We haven't really seen the bunkers in the last ten years but now they're in play again. Now we have to think strategically and I think that the change has worked.

"And the rough at the 17th is the highest I've ever seen it, right and left."

Els lost at Troon in a play- off against Todd Hamilton and he confessed that the blow had taken a long time to shake off.

"When you have nearmisses like that, you look back at what you could have done, at where you made your silly mistakes. It takes a while but, yeah, I'm over it now."

Times were when Colin Montgomerie carried the British flag at the Open but gradually his failure to win it, to win any major championship, has become less of an issue than it was.

Not very often nowadays is he described as the best player never to have won a major. But somebody asked him yesterday if he could become the first British winner of the Open since Paul Lawrie in 1999 and he said that, yes, he could.

"And it would cap my fantastic career. I've come here full of hope, as I do every year."

He thought the Old Course was in prime condition, green yet fast. A perfect links set-up. He said: "The greens are as good as I've ever seen them but it all depends, of course, on where they stick the pins."

Inevitably he was asked about his mental conditioning. Would his chances be enhanced by a more relaxed approach on the course?

"I think so," he replied. "And I've got a good draw. I have Paul Lawrie, a good friend of mine, and David Toms and we get along great.

"And there are no massive hitters in our group.

"We're all the same length and we play a similar game and that's got to be good."

Toms, of course, was a member of two United States teams that Montgomerie was so instrumental in defeating. Any residue?

"I played with David in a practice round at Pinehurst before the US Open and the words Ryder and Cup were never used. And I don't expect them to be now," was his emphatic response.