The Open 2012: this championship course at Royal Lytham & St Annes will be brutal but it won't be unfair And while he was enjoying it, the later starters were out in the teeth of a gale so strong that the tournament was actually suspended at one point. Rory McIlroy, who had opened with a remarkable 63, shot 80, quite literally blown out of contention. The most brutal conditions I ever faced on a golf course were at Muirfield in 2002. Inconveniently, they came in the third round of The Open. I had shot 64 the previous day, a new course record, but that meant a late start on the Saturday for me. Early in the afternoon, a storm of almost hurricane proportions blew across the course. It was horrendous. After five holes I had to get mittens sent out to me from the Callaway truck. It was one of the few occasions when I have felt that competitors would have been justified in walking off the course. As it turned out, I was effectively walking out of the tournament anyway as I signed for an 84 that dynamited any chance of the glory I had dared to dream of just a few hours earlier. Lytham is maybe a little bit different from other Open courses as the houses that surround it offer some protection from the wind. That said, if it does start to blow as the forecasters have suggested it might, the thought that it might be even worse a few miles away will be precious little consolation to players who get caught in it. Even on a fair day this is a course that demands accuracy; and when it is foul it is an awful lot harder. But it is not unfair. After Tiger Woods's comments earlier in the week about the rough being unplayable, comparisons were being made with the situation at Carnoustie in 1999. Frankly, I don't think there's any similarity at all. Like 99 per cent of the players in the field 13 years ago, I was firmly of the opinion that the course set-up was unnecessarily harsh that year. It was once said that the purpose of a major is to identify the best players, not embarrass them. In 1999 embarrassment was far too common. It was simply unfair. Paul Lawrie probably did not think so. Paul's victory in 1999 may have been overshadowed by Jean Van de Velde's infamous excursions into the water at the 72nd hole, but he overtook many players other than Van de Velde as he came from 10 shots back to win. Since when, he has shown time and again that he is a master of tough conditions. He's a good all-rounder - his last two wins were in the conspicuously non-Arctic surroundings of Malaga and Qatar - but there's no question that his confidence rises when the wind gets up or the temperature drops. Attitude mostly. Technically, he is very good at playing the kind of low shots that you need to keep your ball out of trouble, but I think his greatest advantage comes from the way he seems able to shrug off adversity and discomfort. If it does get nasty here then Paul will feel he has an edge, and the confidence boost that comes from that can be very significant in itself. Last year, I was also hugely impressed by the round Rickie Fowler put together when the weather started getting lively at Royal St George's. Of course, the rough in Kent was not as tough as the stuff we have here at Lytham. But then, the Lytham rough is not as fearsome as some people have suggested. Of course, there will be a penalty for anyone who goes into it, but it is one of the fundamentals of golf that bad shots should be punished and good shots, which at Lytham means straight shots, should be rewarded. Here, I like the fact that the worst of the rough, the really deep stuff, is far off line, meaning there is an element of proportionality to the punishment as well. It is all the more frustrating for me not to be involved this year, as straightness has always been a strength of mine. I only missed out by one shot in final qualifying at Sunningdale, and I felt that Lytham was the kind of course that would have played to my strengths. I'm not saying I would have won the thing, but I might have had a decent run, as I did when The Open was last here in 2001. But I will sit back and enjoy golf's oldest and greatest major. How may in the field will have the belief they need when they step up to the first tee?