Since Retief Goosen held his nerve to win the US Open after a nail-biting finale, he has been inundated with sponsorship offers.

But of all the companies queuing up for the South African's endorsement, camera specialists should be to the fore.

Focus, it seems, doesn't come any sharper in a golfer than in Goosen.

The softly-spoken South African strolls the fairways as if he was walking through his own front room in carpet slippers.

Nothing, apparently, can throw him off his stride, certainly not a three-foot missed putt for a Major.

"All I can do is try and play well and if it happens at the end of the week it's great. I'm looking forward to it. "

It is clear that Goosen is as fixed on the task ahead as a blinkered racehorse, but he admits the inner calm that has floated him to the highest cloud in golf is something he has worked hard to achieve.

"I have been working on it for years - trying to be a bit more calm on the course," he explains.

"It is something I have worked on with my wife and my psychologist and it's starting to pay off now."

But even his powers of concentration must have at least flickered when he missed the most innocent-looking of putts to clinch the US Open last month.

Goosen insists otherwise.

"All that went through my mind was that I had to make the next one to give myself a chance again the next day," he said.

"I wasn't too upset about it - as everybody else was - but it was great to pull it through." Lytham, he believes, might prove an altogether tougher proposition.

The course's manicured fairways may be looking like Augusta's finest, but the rough has been allowed to grow to fearsome heights.

Comparing conditions to the 1999 Championship in Carnoustie, Goosen said: "The rough is as bad as it was then, so driving and keeping it on the fairways is going to be very important.

"You have to have a lot of imagination in links golf because you have to allow for a lot of run and bounces on the course.

High drama

"It's going to be tough out there - the course is playing as tough as I have seen it.

"But any tournament is difficult, certainly any Major.

"I'm going to give it my best shot and see what happens at the end."

Whatever that may be, whether he wins the title with a 50-foot putt, or misses the cut by 10 shots, Goosen's pulse will apparently remain regular.

And that is likely to be a rare claim in a week of high drama at Lytham.