Only 12 spots up for Open

Only 12 places in The Open, four fewer than last year, will be up for grabs at Sunningdale on Monday when 2006 Ryder Cup heroes Darren Clarke, Paul McGinley and Jose Maria Olazabal are among 120 players doing battle over 36 holes.

Anyone wanting to see Olazabal's bid in its entirety will need to rise at the crack of dawn, however. He is the very first player to tee off on the Old Course - at 6.30am.

The twice Masters champion is playing his first competitive golf since missing the halfway at the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth five weeks ago.

He missed last year's Open with knee trouble, was out for seven months over the winter because of rheumatism and since his return in March has been battling fatigue.

Clarke and McGinley would have avoided the qualifier with a top-three finish in the French Open, but now face this route of trying to keep their Open runs going.

Asian Open champion Clarke, runner-up to Justin Leonard in 1997 and third behind David Duval in 2001, has played every championship since failing to qualify as an amateur in 1990, while McGinley, second after the opening round last year, last missed out in 1995.

Also in the field are Thomas Bjorn, so close to winning at Sandwich in 2003, last July's leading amateur Rory McIlroy and France's Thomas Levet, beaten only at the fifth hole of a play-off at Ernie Els at Muirfield in 2002.

A further 12 spots are on offer in America, with the 120 players there including Jesper Parnevik, twice a runner-up, Australian Steve Elkington, who was in the same play-off as Els and Levet, and Davis Love.

In all there are more than 100 of the world's top 250 in action.