More woes in the forecast

SOUTHPORT, England -- Funny, they said the winner of the 137th British Open might deserve an asterisk because of Tiger Woods’ absence. Now it seems he’ll deserve a hot meal, a warm bath, a thick blanket and a Claret Jug marked “Survivor.”

“Miserable, miserable, miserable,” Vijay Singh said of the weather Thursday.

“Bloody miserable,” Craig Parry said.

“It’s not a fun topic of conversation,” Phil Mickelson said after his 79, which probably warrants a response.

Oh?

The wind sounds distinctly as if it’s laughing as it blows straight from some golf Hades and across the Irish Sea and onto the dunes of Royal Birkdale, criss-crossing holes and disrupting shots. It surpasses mere meanness and achieves something more like sadism. It’s supposed to remain at least through Saturday.

In other words, there’s a real British Open underway.

U.S. Open runner-up Rocco Mediate, Australia’s Robert Allenby and Northern Ireland’s Graeme McDowell made the best of the first-round conditions, sharing the lead at one-under-par 69.

For the start on Thursday morning, they had sideways rain, English summer chill, tortured golfers and the hardest Open weather since the Saturday at Muirfield 2002.

Said Justin Rose: “You can’t feel the putter.” Said Singh, who shot an 80: “I just couldn’t stand over a putt and have a comfortable putt.” Said Jean Van de Velde, the tragic figure of Carnoustie in 1999: “You can see the ball wobbling” -- and to think he played in the calmer afternoon that qualified as merely brutal.

Club selection turns part game show. “It’s guesswork,” Colin Montgomerie said, and he started with a yeoman 73. Parry, the first man out, said his three-wood “was going about 180 yards into the wind; you could probably putt it farther than that.” McDowell, winner of last week’s Scottish Open, said he hit four-irons from 170, a three-club departure from norm.

On brutal No. 6, a 499-yarder into the wind, Boo Weekley, the Florida Panhandle sort who knows how to rid a yard of bothersome alligators, played driver-driver and still wound up “59, 58 yards short,” he said.

Remarking on what he’d do at home in such weather, he said, “I’d be huntin’.”

Who, then, might thrive in a real British Open?

Maybe an Irishman. “You’re probably looking at close to 40% of the field that really aren’t prepared to play in weather like that,” defending champion Padraig Harrington said, although he didn’t name the 40%. “So yes, it does give you an advantage, big advantage.

“You know, Birkdale would be known as a golf course that has suited, some say, the U.S. players coming across. . . . You look at some of our Asian friends, would find today very cold, so they’re not comfortable in that weather. Yeah, I would definitely think it gives an advantage to any of the guys from Great Britain and Ireland.”

Examining his fine opening 74 that overrode a wrist injury, Harrington said, “I wouldn’t mind another go at that round,” an essential craving of madness.

Or maybe somebody who has conquered an inhumane course before, like Retief Goosen, champion of the much-lamented 2004 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills. “In a way you sort of feel that maybe half of the field is sort of not trying anymore because they’re tough conditions,” Goosen said after a 71. “In a way you know if you grind away and shoot something around par, you’re not going to be far off the lead. . . . I’m not very comfortable on golf courses that you have to shoot 20-under par to win.”

Maybe some near-geezer with chronic lifetime windburn etched in the face might hang around, even if it doesn’t end up being Tom Watson, 58, who showed how with an opening 74, or the businessman and part-time golfer Greg Norman, 53, who began with even-par 70, or the 1998 champion Mark O’Meara, 51, who began with 74.

“I didn’t kick any butt, I was just trying not to get my butt kicked,” said O’Meara, who’d received a “kick some butt” message from friend Woods, recuperating in his first major-tournament absence since the 1996 PGA.

“Tough conditions are sometimes an equalizer,” said Norman, calling it the best, fairest, toughest Open of his 26, and recollecting his victory at rugged Turnberry in 1986 even if some of the current players used pacifiers then.

“The first round at Muirfield in 1980,” Watson said when playing partner Rose inquired as to the toughest weather of his charmed British Open life.

“What’d you shoot?” Rose said.

“Sixty-eight,” Watson said.

Or maybe somebody too full of mirth to care about snarling weather might come through this. After his 69, Mediate said, “I have no explanation for that whatsoever. No idea why that happened. . . . Crazy stuff.”

The 45-year-old Pennsylvanian barber’s son, he’s a fresh supernova since his epic tete-a-tete with Woods at the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. Eighteen months ago, he trod in nadir and donned a broadcaster’s microphone; now he’s laughing back at the wind, saying, “I just want to get in the situation to see what I really have. That’s what you want to test. I was tested a month or so ago. The only thing I didn’t like of the results was I lost.”

He’s extolling his physical therapist Cindy Hilfman, extolling his swing therapist Jimmy Ballard, extolling the insanity of his life since Torrey Pines. He’s saying his whole career is just starting again. “It’s ridiculous, what’s happened, ridiculous,” he said. “I’m shocked at a lot of things in myself, really.”

The winner here probably won’t be Mickelson, whose trajectory mismatch with British air shows in his one top-10 finish among 15 previous tries, and it definitely won’t be Sandy Lyle, the 1985 champion, or Rich Beem, the 2002 PGA champion.

In weather that made one English golfer, Ian Poulter, long for “a nice cup of tea and a piece of cake,” Lyle and Beem simply walked off, Lyle on No. 11, Beem after No. 9.