THE final sign that summer is soon to fade is here. After Wimbledon's fortnight of frenzy and froth frittered into another foreign conquest, and Royal Ascot has high-stepped in and high-heeled away, the last summer sporting fling is represented by The Open.

But what a way to bow out. In less than 48 hours the world's top golfers will converge on Royal Troon, the course first carved out of dune-land in 1878 on the Argyllshire coast owned by the Duke of Portland.

As the build-up to the battle for the claret jug has increased, Royal Troon has been sniffily described in some quarters as not being as spectacular as other Scottish courses, or indeed, those in England that have had the privilege of hosting the sport's greatest individual competition.

But what it may lack in ethereal beauty Royal Troon more than makes up for in degree of difficulty, something that I, for one, hope will be smack to the fore throughout the four days of play.

Trans-Atlantic transmissions from America of sun-dappled, acacia-lined, rhododendron-drenched courses midway through the golfing calendar fail to inspire this particular hack golfer until, that is, the assembled players finally gather on greens that resemble convex glass.

When you see that little white ball whizzing past the hole at a rate of knots envied by Olympic-class sprinters, then more than a little grin of satisfaction breaks out on the Kelly countenance.

That's not to say I would relish such a prospect.

For me, golf is best played as a fair-weather pastime. At worst, a light drizzle can be stomached, a little nip on the temperature can be endured - but nothing more extreme.

After all, for the hack there is little better in golf than to be playing in late evening sunshine.

But when it comes to the world's elite, the preference is for them to be vying against the elements as much as the vagaries of any particular course. The game is perverse enough for unconvincing club-wielders, so let it be so for the leading professionals, who, let's face it, often make the serpentine game look the most simple to play.

Some come this Thursday, and in the indomitable words of Kevin Keegan, 'I would love it' if any celestial powers that be could arrange for gales to rage fiercely off the Irish Sea, driving rain to slant in and temperatures to plummet. I call upon golf's gods to be at their most capricious.

So what if breaking par is as rare as Chelsea not chasing an expensive import? So what if conditions are less benign than a bunker full of rattlesnakes enraged by the thud of a ball on the bonce?

I want the globe's pantheon of golfers to be tested to the limit, or, if truth be known, to have our colonial cousins from across the Atlantic in particular to be greeted by the sort of King Lear golf - blow winds, crack your cheeks - that they seldom face within their own manicured land. That will surely mean they will not walk away with the coveted claret jug as part of their hand luggage back across the Atlantic.

But hang on a minute. That's blown a hole, or rather a Texas-sized crater, in that argument. Go back through the history of The Open at Royal Troon and since England's Arthur Havers won the trophy when the championship was first staged there in 1923, all the other winners have hailed from the United States.

Bobby Locke, Arnold Palmer, Tom Weiskopf, Tom Watson, Mark Calcavecchia and Justin Leonard have all whistled their own Troon of glory. Och well, looks like us Brits will yet again be whistling Dixie come Sunday tea-time.

Updated: 09:37 Tuesday, July 13, 2004