First-Round Forecast: Hot and Chilly

Here’s an Al Gore-type British Open, on a patch of earth globally warmed enough that the chief fire officer is on alert, the smokers are cautioned not to start brush fires and it’s just about possible to have a mirage of a camel.

Even if rain drops by (as expected) and temperatures slouch somewhat (as expected), the heat wave that notched the hottest July temperature on English record -- a Cairo-esque 97.3 degrees Wednesday in Charlwood, near London -- has done some irreparable wreaking.

Besides the usual threatening of children, the elderly and John Daly, noted golfer/best-selling author/chain-smoker, the heat almost certainly will rob Royal Liverpool Golf Club by the Irish Sea of the beautifully wretched gloom that makes a British Open a British Open.

It certainly has sentenced the rough to a horrendous death, robbing it of the capacity to grab club heads and balls or join, say, Carnoustie 1999 among the royal family of rough.

And it surely has promised the various effects of dryness on fairways and greens, with 43-year-old Colin Montgomerie calling it “the driest links course we’ve ever come to on a Monday, Tuesday.”

For chill, the 135th British Open might have to rely on today’s curious pairing (6:09 a.m., Pacific time) that includes both Tiger Woods and Nick Faldo, alongside Shingo Katayama.

This arrangement has drawn credit for devilish humor, because it puts a less-than-chatty, 30-year-old, two-time Open champion (Woods) with a less-than-chatty, 49-year-old, three-time Open champion who happened to criticize the two-time champion’s golf swing as an ABC broadcaster during the January 2005 Buick Invitational.

On that momentous Sunday that reiterated just how sensitive men can be about their golf swings, Faldo expressed on-air incredulity at Woods’ two-iron approach on the 72nd hole at Torrey Pines, even dissecting Woods’ swing in slow motion and finding it shockingly imperfect.

Eighteen icy months later, an English bookmaker offered odds of 6-4 on the pair not shaking hands at the first tee, and Woods took a turn at wryness.

Asked Tuesday what would be his reaction if Faldo wanted to talk, Woods said, famously by now, “Surprised.”

If the bookmakers stand by for only the third pairing between the 10-major winner (Woods) and the six-major winner (Faldo), the authorities stand by for the rest.

“The fire station here is about two minutes from the course, and if we had normal weather conditions they would have stayed there because the chief fire officer is quite happy about that,” said David Hill of the Royal & Ancient, overseer of British Opens. “But given the weather, it’s prudent for them to come to the golf course, just in case anything should happen.”

Number of engines: “Two,” Hill said, “which is more than adequate.”

You don’t normally associate British Opens with notices going up on scoreboards warning smokers to use due diligence in butt disposal due to rampant dryness, but it has been so hot you could sense a glacier melting not too far up north, and 70 firefighters contained a grasslands blaze 30 miles away Tuesday.

As well, the Royal & Ancient planned to issue warnings to the 156 players, Daly their best-known 18-hole smoker, but the players planned to burn up the course in other ways.

With the curse of fast greens offset by myriad factors like fast fairways, deceased rough and 39 years of golf-club technology since a seriously low 10 under par won the previous British Open here in 1967, sages like Woods and Jack Nicklaus have imagined hot scores.

“The recipe exists for low scoring,” Nicklaus said, having surveyed a course that’ll play 263 yards longer than in 1967.

He said that before the heat wave added long bouncing to the low scoring.

“What you do is you play less club and let the ball run,” said Phil Mickelson, the Masters champion aiming to salve his U.S. Open meltdown last month. “But I don’t do much different. I just allow the ball to release a little bit more. It’s very tricky. It’s optically difficult for us sometimes coming over here to visualize the ball running 60, 80, 100 yards.”

Just as it’s optically difficult having mirages in England.