TURNBERRY: If history is any guide, there can only be one winner of the 138th Open Championship, which tees off here on Thursday.

Turnberry has a good claim to be regarded as the most picturesque of all the venues on the Open rota, but what really makes local chests swell with pride is the Course’s unrivalled ability to produce champions recognised by their peers as the world’s best.

Tom Watson, who provided Turnberry with its finest hour when he edged Jack Nicklaus in the 1977, Greg Norman with his first major win in 1986 and Nick Price eight years later: all of them giants of the game. If the record is to continue, the only outcome can be a Tiger Woods triumph.

“The guys that have won before here were some of the best ball strikers of all time, or certainly in their eras,” said Woods. “It shows that you just can’t fake it around this golf course. You just have to hit good golf shots.” Nobody does that quite as well as Woods and, having finished tied for sixth place in both the first two majors of the year — The Masters and the US Open — there is a sense that major title number 15 is now a little overdue for the world No 1.

Woods had only just gone under the knife when last year’s Open was contested and he was too preoccupied with the initial, painful stages of his rehabilitation to pay too much attention to the action at Royal Birkdale. He did however take in the climax of a tournament that saw Padraig Harrington clinch his second consecutive Open title.

Woods and Harrington have both identified driving, one of the keys to victory on a layout ringed by rough that has been allowed to grow thick and tall as a result of an unusually wet and warm spring here. Straight driving has convinced many that Lee Westwood is the most likely man to become the first home winner of the world’s oldest major tournament since Paul Lawrie won at Carnoustie in 1999.

Paul Casey and Ian Poulter also look capable of joining the ranks of major winners but it is hard to make a compelling case for anyone other than Tiger.