Those who have read Neil Tappin’s blog from last night will know that while my office colleagues are getting to enjoy one final golfing outing before hitting the laptops hard for the rest of the week, I’m now doing my best Billy no Mates impression in the media centre at 8.10 on Tuesday morning as a result of what can only be described as a personal Hillside howler yesterday.

To rub salt into the wound, as I have no motor myself this week, I’ve had to suffer the ignominy of being dropped off by the boys en route to Formby Golf Club at an earlier hour than I perhaps would have ideally liked on Open Tuesday. All I can say is that I hope the stiff Birkdale breeze turns into a full-blown gale just down the road, the threatened rain moves quickly in, and they arrive at the course just in time to witness a coach-load of camera-laden Japanese tourists teeing off ahead of them!

But ultimately I only have myself to blame – my golf has gone south for a while leaving me with little desire to play anyway, and this will give me the perfect chance to really get stuck into this Open Championship.

Right now I’m looking at the scheduled groupings for today’s practice rounds, with one or two catching my eye:-

• Like me, Monty is also down for a bit of a Billy no Mates session, heading out on his own at 4.00pm – perhaps wise given his crotchety mood of late.
• David Duval is out there all alone with his thoughts - and a still bafflingly absent golf game - right now.
• The nations are sticking together – there’s an Argentine trio of Cabrera, Canete and Romero making its way round right now, a French quartet of Havret, Bourdy, Gonnet and Lima getting underway shortly and a Spanish trio of Garcia, Larrazabal and Jimenez heading out at midday.
• Justin Rose looks to be picking a former Birkdale winner’s brains later on when he heads out with five-time champ, Tom Watson.
• The group that sounds most like a firm of solicitors is currently Poulter, Casey and Boyd. Ian could have done with a little legal advice after last week’s alleged ‘very bad word’ incident at Loch Lomond, but I understand the Englishman has now apparently been cleared of all charges.

Anyway, enough of all that – I’m off to the practice ground to see who’s ripping it, who can barely hit it forwards, and who’s swing is most likely to help spark a revival in my ailing golf game, before heading off for a first look at the controversial 17th green to see what all the fuss is about. Will report back later.

ONE of the basic rules of the pro golf tour is that if you want to bump into a few players then all that needs to be done is to locate the nearest steak restaurant. There might be a few veggies who play high-octane golf for a living but the norm is that these guys love nothing better than ingesting fairly recently slaughtered beef.

In Southport the eating action tends to start and end at The Grill Inn (geddit?) a pleasant enough hostelry that is situated at the Birkdale end of Lord Street, the once famous and elegant shopping street that retains its elegance but in a very faded sort of way and with a hotch-potch of shops that seem to these eyes to include a rather high number of places selling the sort of lingerie that a sensible lass would not team up with her hiking boots.

Anyway the Big Plan was for the GM team to hold what a senior executive described as ‘an Open strategy meeting’. This is the sort of thing senior executives do to while away those tedious hours between one bar closing and another opening. Apparently it was a very successful meeting too and everyone now knows what they are doing this week. To be honest this is a bit of a worry because I can’t remember much about it all.

However, what I do remember is that Justin Leonard was gnawing on something at the next table and that the former Open champion continues to bear a striking resemblance to the Duke of York. Or is it the other way round? On another table the Gregories Havret and Bourdy were charming the wotsit out of the waitresses with their garlic, sorry Gallic, charm. And standing by the door was Steve Stricker who was trying to travel incognito in jeans, trainers and the sort of top favoured by men who have mislaid their vanity.

Twice I had to interrupt his conversation with someone and twice he was sweetly polite, apologising to me for being in the way and generally behaving like the nicest American on the planet. Stricker’s recovery from a bad place over the last couple of seasons has been one of the game’s more satisfying stories and so I am delighted to report that he also is a very nice bloke. Manners don’t count for much when it comes to winning big sports things but they matter to me and so I hope he enjoys a particularly joyful week this time.

I feel the same about Jim Furyk who for years now has been one of the most approachable and friendly of pros. I bumped into him by the 18th green yesterday and we paused for a quick chat after his practice round. “Do I enjoy these practice rounds before majors?” he said in answer to me question. “No, not really. There are too many people for that. Practising on my own is peaceful and I enjoy that but I can’t do that at a major. The rounds usually take forever and there is always someone in the group who insists on practising ten three foot putts on every green instead of practising afterwards. Still, it has to be done, you have to get to know the course and prepare for all eventualities. And, yes, it’s very good to be here.”

Leaving Furyk to find some much-needed peace I then bumped into Ken Brown who was, as usually, preparing meticulously for his starring BBC TV role this week. Ken is a genuinely astute observer of the game and so I asked him what he thought of Birkdale at this stage.

“It’s obviously been very wet in recent weeks and so it is very, very green and lush. If there is such a thing as an American style links for The Open Championship then this is it.” This was good to hear because my early money has gone on young American Hunter Mahan at 66/1. Mahan finished sixth last year and has crept into Lancashire under the radar of most of the bookmakers. Can he win? Yes he can. Will he? Who knows but what I do know is that at this stage his price offers outstanding value for money. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

On Sunday lunchtime the Golf Monthly funbus left London for the Lancashire coast carrying five fresh-faced, over-excited journalists ready to get their teeth into the 2008 Open Championship. With the prospect of great golf and the odd party or five, giddiness levels were at an all-time high. Fast-forward 24 hours to Monday lunchtime and chronic fatigue has well and truly set in. Allow me to connect the dots…

No sooner had we arrived in Southport last night than we found ourselves in the Grill Inn drinking far too much red wine. This was a big mistake for two reasons. Firstly, Open week offers a glimpse into what life must have been like for George Best (bar the women). Either extremely lively or unbelievably tired, there’s not much in between and by the time the Open Champion is crowned on Sunday we’re all ready to check into the priory. Secondly, team GM had a 7.30am tee-time at nearby Hillside this morning. Needless to say, consuming copious amounts of vin rouge until 1.30am is no way to prepare for one of the UK’s toughest links courses. To make matters worse, due to a strange set of circumstances too boring to bother explaining here, the player finishing last would not get the chance to play at Formby tomorrow.

Two holes in and yours truly was in serious trouble, and I'm not talking hangovers here. It quickly became apparent that the brand spanking new golf shoes I’d acquired for the week (I’d use the word ‘bought’ but I’d be lying) were half a size too small. Just as the clubhouse became a dot on the horizon, the skin on the back of my feet started to rub off. Much to the amusement of my playing partners I had no choice but to play the remainder of the front nine without shoes. Think golfing Ghandi and you'll get the picture.

The last laugh however, was mine. At the ninth I hobbled into the clubhouse and slipped on my street shoes. I came out all guns blazing and showed the others how to play. The huge bets that were set last night worked in my favour and I ran out a richly rewarded winner. Jezz and Mike battled it out for the last spot at Formby, in the end Jezz was unable to hang on. The good news for you, if not for him, is that he’ll be blogging bright and early tomorrow morning! Bad luck old boy.

2 months into my internship at Golf Monthly, I was beginning to feel a little like Colin Montgomerie. I am not in the habit of castigating SkySports technicians, and i am scarcely over half Monty's age, but I was clinging onto the vain hope that I may gain a wildcard pick for the GM team heading to the Open. Sadly I missed out on selection, so I will have to settle for following the tournament from the comfort of the office, on BBC's interactive service!

So what exactly can the armchair golf fan expect to see at Birkdale? The BBC will be providing wall-to-wall coverage, and are bound to provide few surprises along the way. Gary Lineker will be tanned and suave; Peter Alliss will provide whimsical charm, and forthright opinion in equal measure. Sam Torrace will not have his expanded his adjectival vocabulary beyond “beautiful”, and Ken Brown will inform us on everything that we need, and don't need to know about every nook and cranny on the course.

Tiger Woods will certainly not be there, but his absence is unlikely to mean that he will not be mentioned at regular intervals during the course of the event. Having watched Tiger at close quarters at Carnoustie last year, I believe the tournament will be poorer without his participation.

Without Tiger in the field, this particular scribe is unlikely to be putting any money on the tournament. I do however hope that we will see a second successive European champion on Sunday night. There is no doubt that the in form Europeans, Westwood, Karlsson, Jimenez and Ross Fisher all have a fantastic chance of winning their first majors next week, though my tip for the title is the young German Martin Kaymer, particularly if the weather stays fair.

Keep up to date with all the latest news from the tournament on our dedicated Open Championship microsite. Our team of (rather fortunate!) experts will be providing regular blogs, news updates, and all the latest photos from the tournament. Stay tuned also for opinion and reaction from those of us who will be in Southwark, not Southport!

So high are the levels of excitement ahead of the 137th Open Championship at Birkdale in the GM Office that one member of the team has worked out how many seconds there are tee-off time.Following Padraig Harrington and Sergio Garcia (under the ropes, it's a grand life!) for the last round at Carnoustie was undoubtedly the best piece of live sporting action I've ever seen. Now 12 months on we are ready to do it all again! Thank the Lord or the R&A (is there a difference?) that the Open is not like the football World Cup, and not just in that it only happens once every four years.

Anyway we are now exactly 1,123,200 seconds from teeing off at the 137th Open Championship, well actually now we are probably five or six or seven seconds less than that . I am a fast typer you see. That's the huge advantage of counting down to events in seconds: things appear to come round so much quicker.

Emails have been flying round this office for the last week or so as details are finalised for our en-masse decamp to Southport for 10 days or so. Excitement levels are extremely high, helped by the fact that we have just booked our pre-tournament golf at Hillside and Formby and been told that there is one of England's finest curry houses just minutes from the house we are staying in. Happy days indeed.

Three of the office have been lucky enough to play Birkdale in the last 12 months and we are all making sure that the rest don't forget that fact. Is there anything worse than watching Ernie hit his drive in the middle of the Open and hearing your buddy carp on about how he parred this hole with a audacious flop-shot up and down? But of course, there is nothing better than being that person, re-living your round through the pros!

For those who don't know Birkdale so well, you are about to be blown away. It's a simply magnificent track and definitely gets my vote as the best layout in England. It's brutally beautiful and impossible until the wind blows when, for you and I, it becomes unplayable yet somehow still infinitely enjoyable. I think you'll see what I mean come July 17.

Sergio, Padraig, Poults, Justin, Lee? Crikey with Tiger not in the field even I might win the Claret Jug this year. Of course we will miss the greatest golfer ever to pick up a 3-iron but wow is it going to be exciting seeing who steps up and grabs this magnificent opportunity. Oh, and some more good news; now it's only 1,122,555 seconds until blast-off.