Many wrote it off as the biggest fluke since Foinavon was a foal, but 12 months later he was back stunning them again. Again he confirmed he had hardly practised, but that this time he was “thinking claret jug, not low amateur. I hear the rough’s pretty long at Muirfield, so I’m off to buy a strimmer”. He obviously did not find one powerful enough, as he missed the cut again, but still left with enough memories to last another 12 months “The whole Open experience is brilliant,” he said “I’m not overawed by it at all. The first year I marched up to the first and asked Tom Watson and Fred Couples if I could play a practice round with them, and last year did the same with Jim Furyk I like the pressure, because this is ‘go for it’ golf. I just love taking these players on.”Not that Kemp would consider turning professional.

He tried for his Tour card a few years ago, but after getting through the first stage he discovered that the final stage in Spain was the day after his wedding. “I convinced Mandy that it would be a good place to honeymoon, but when I got there the other amateurs were out jogging, which made me feel pretty inadequate. So I took it seriously, and got up at the crack of dawn to practise But the range was already jam-packed by the time I arrived. I decided there and then that it wasn’t for me.”And it seems he isn’t for the England set-up, who have yet to pick him, despite his Open record and his winning the British Mid-Amateur twice. “The amateurs are all full-time now; a lot of them are more professional than the professionals.

England want you to commit full-time, but I have a stressful job to do,” he said. Indeed, his laptop will remain switched on throughout his latest Open adventure, and although it is hard to imagine Kemp taking a business call as he walks up the 18th at Sandwich, that is only because Royal St George’s don’t allow mobile phones.He’s certainly playing well enough to get there. “My coach, Ian Connolly – Nick Faldo’s old mentor – has said I’m playing better now than the last two years,” he said. By way of proof, Kemp won the Midland Amateur two weekends ago, and is 26 under for his last nine rounds What Woosnam would give for figures like that.. Darren Clarke’s love of links golf has been moulded by both upbringing and a natural inclination towards the finer things in life. Clarke is a man who appreciates a certain quality when it comes to wine or cigars, to name but two of his pleasures, and it might be supposed that he would have fallen for links golf even without the advantage of learning the game on courses that included the magnificent Royal Portrush. For those who make their living on the professional tours it is a rare treat, although this season they will get a double bill, as the Irish Open returns to Portmarnock next week, providing a second chance to indulge after the main course at The Open this week at Royal St George’s.It is a time of year that Clarke looks forward to more than any other “I love links golf, I always have done,” he said “It’s my favourite form of golf I love the challenge of it It is totally different to anything else we do.

A links in the summer is a fantastic place to be.”Just as Wimbledon offers the opportunity for the top players of a return to the grass roots of the game, so The Open Championship brings the stars back to how the game started. For Clarke, the challenge is a more intriguing one than is presented most weeks on tour “Every links course has its own character. Most of the time we play inland courses which are all very similar, target courses But every links is completely different. Royal St George’s is certainly one of the toughest.”Clarke travelled down to Sandwich recently to remind himself of the links that last staged The Open in 1993 “I had forgotten how tough it was,” he said. “It is definitely one of the toughest courses on the Open rota. The fairways are very difficult to hit, because of the camber and the shape of them.