By Matt Slater Golf editor

Royal Liverpool at Hoylake is hosting its first Open since 1967

The man responsible for setting up the course for this year's Open is predicting a week of low scores.

Craig Gilholm, Hoylake's links manager, believes a record score is possible if the area's famed winds fail to arrive.

"This course relies on its bunkering, rough and the weather - without wind you're looking at a winning score of about 18 under," said Gilholm.

Conditions have been benign all summer which suggests Tiger Woods' record 19-under total in 2000 is under threat.

Woods' score was set during a week of friendly weather at St Andrews.

Another record that could be challenged is the highest number of rounds under 70 at an Open. The current best of 148 was set at Turnberry in 1994.

The real question is what effect a modern ball will have on an old-fashioned links like Royal Liverpool Open legend Peter Thomson

Five-time Open champion Peter Thomson, a winner on Royal Liverpool's famous links in 1956, agrees with Gilholm's prediction that spectators can expect to see plenty of birdies and eagles.

"In calm conditions we're looking at a low (winning) score," said the 76-year-old Australian.

"The real question is what effect a modern golf ball will have on a classic, old-fashioned links like Royal Liverpool, because the course hasn't really changed.

"There isn't much room to extend it so it's effectively the same as it was in 1967."

Thomson, who believes the modern ball has removed much of the difficulty of playing in wind, is right about the similarity of today's Royal Liverpool to the one he faced in 1956 and 1967, the last time the Open was staged there.

Forty-four-year-old Argentine Roberto de Vicenzo was the winner that year with a 10-under-par total of 278.

Some minor surgery has been done to England's second oldest seaside links but the only major alteration from Thomson's era has been to change the numbering of the holes.

The members' 17th is the 1st during Open week, with the usual 18th becoming the 2nd. The par-five 16th is now the last, presenting those seeking the Claret Jug with a birdie-chance to finish.

Hoylake's origins as a racecourse can be seen on some of holes

This also means the members' 1st, arguably the hardest hole on the course, now comes third on the card - a stiff challenge first up should be less difficult after a couple of holes' warm-up.

But in whichever order the players tackle the course, which dates from 1867, Gilholm and his staff are confident the Wirral lay-out will provide a fitting venue for golf's oldest major.

"We had a few worries at the start of the year as the winter had been so dry. But once the rain came in the spring the rough really took off," said the 34-year-old from Aberlady.

"The course is looking good and the greens are in great shape. In fact, the greens are as good as you could hope them to be with a week to go.

"They are perhaps about a foot slower than the R&A (the championship's organisers) would want them next week but that is fine at this stage because we can cut them shorter."

Gilholm, whose team will be cutting the greens three times a day during the championship, admitted the current dry weather Merseyside is experiencing is a slight concern.

With little rainfall of late, the rough, which has a short growing season due to Hoylake's sandy soil, is starting to retreat.

More worrying is the state of the greens if the dry (and drying) weather continues.

We'd rather see birdies than people really struggling Craig Gilholm Links manager at Hoylake

"The concern is if we get another week of dry, sunny weather we will have to start watering (the greens). You never get the speed back in them then, no matter how short you cut them."

The speed of the greens at Open Championships is always a subject of some contention, particularly with American-based golfers who are used to much faster putting surfaces in the US.

Gilholm agrees that British greens are slower - "about two to two and a half feet slower on the stimp meter" - but says there are practical reasons for this.

"Our greens are slower but they are also firmer. So while putts run faster in the States, their greens are more receptive," he said.

"The other factor is wind. We could not have them as quick as they do at the Masters or US Open because if the ball starts moving on the greens the R&A would be forced to abandon play."

Gilholm, who was second in command at Muirfield in 2002, also admitted there was a different rationale to setting up an Open course to the more traditionally punishing US Open lay-outs.

"We'd rather see birdies than people really struggling," he said.

With the sun currently beating down on a relatively breeze-free Hoylake, Gilholm should get his wish - birdies will not be in short supply come Thursday.