Dave Tindall is our man at Hoylake this week and he'll bring you all the news and colour.

1955: I've just been out to walk the third hole to help out a friend who's getting a bit twitchy about a spread bet he's had. Despite the internal out of bounds down the right I don't think it's too hard in these conditions although Harry has ranked it as the most difficult hole on the course. We shall see tomorrow. Time to go.

1910: After another roasting hot day, just about everyone is hoping for the heat to relent. And the weather forecast suggests we may get our wish. The handout released by the R&A says: "Generally a little cooler. Cloudier tomorrow with some showers, especially during the first part of the morning. Should become dry and brighten by the afternoon. The temperature into the mid-twenties in a light north-westerly breeze. Friday and the weekend will still be pleasantly warm, but there may well be the odd shower about particularly on Friday. The wind generally light, mostly in the north-westerly, though could pick up a light southerly on Sunday." So a chance of rain. Will it soften the greens just a little in the morning and make it easier for the early starters? Or, as usual, will Tiger (late start on Thursday, early on Friday) find himself on the right side of the draw?

1900: I cut a lonely, possibly tragic, figure as I eat tonight's main meal of chicken and rice in the completely deserted press canteen. The rest of the journalists are already out on the town buying overpriced beer but I've just been given two pieces of chicken instead of one. So who's sad now? I am actually heading into Hoylake at 8pm to meet with friends and our destination will probably be The Ship. Rumour has it that George Clooney, Samuel L Jackson and Bruce Willis have all been seen in there. Whatever. What I want to know is the whereabouts of Tarby and co. As for my celebrity spots, so far today I've seen two Gallachers (Kirsty and Bernard rather than the ones in Oasis), Hazel Irvine, and Sam Torrance. Add in yesterday's Didi Hamann and that gives me a fairly poor 115pts. I want to smash the 1,000 barrier by the end of the week.

1810: As well as my Bettingzone tips - Jim Furyk, Davis Love, Kenny Perry, Mike Weir and Rodney Pampling - I've also played quite a few on Betfair, either due to their inflated price or on what I've seen here. The hard, fast conditions should suit the South Africans so I've backed Ernie Els at 19.5, Retief Goosen at 30 and Tim Clark at 60. And the crazy-priced ones are: Arron Oberholser at 200, Zach Johnson at 230, Paul Broadhurst at 300, Lucas Glover at 320, Greg Owen at 400, Brett Quigley at 500 and Johan Edfors at 570. The last one was obviously struck before he won the Scottish Open although some of the others have drifted to even bigger prices. I can't really see any of those 200+ ones winning but hopefully I can trade them back for a profit as the tournament progresses.

1710: My main tip this week is Jim Furyk and I was told last night that he was spotted amongst the tourists at Liverpool's Albert Dock earlier this week. Fair enough. Jim was probably there with his young family taking a look at 'The Beatles Story' museum or perusing the Tate Gallery. Except Jim was all on his own. Hmmmm. I now have this image of him wondering around the Dock muttering away to himself like Rain Man. "Links courses are bad, links courses are bad." Squeal. Hopefully I'm being paranoid.

1700: Sitting next to Dick Turner of the Daily Sport means I get to hear the best stories first. He's now just ringing through a story to Daily Sport HQ about how the girls operating the manual scoreboards in the press tent have been instructed to wear shorts rather than skirts to stop flashing when they climb the ladders. I reckon he's made that up to be honest.

1650: It seemed I was a bit flippant about the 'fire risk' warnings before. They're genuine and there's now a smoking ban in place - bad news for cigar-chomping Darren Clarke and 30-a-day man John Daly.

1625: That was an interesting 80 minutes and I'm glad I took two bottles of water out with me. It's still red-hot. The bank which overlooks the sixth green and seventh tee is an excellent vantage point and I watch some of the action from there. Ian Poulter, wearing dark blue pants with a big question mark on them, hits a lovely tee shot to the 202-yard par three. It pitches short and rolls up the bank to the elevated green, suggesting Poulter knows what's required on a hard, fast links course. McGinley hits two tee-shots, the first finds the bunker which he picks up and the second lands in a grassy patch to the right of the green. He has a fluffy lie so tries a big parachute shot but doesn't move the ball at all as his club slides under it. "We play like that," says a Scouse voice from the crowd to which McGinley responds with an embarrassed laugh. He tries again and hits it about 20 feet past. Poulter has a go and shows him how it's done, somehow stopping both his attempts before the hole. Next on the tee is the stellar group of Ernie Els, Michael Campbell and Darren Clarke. And Ted Purdy. Clarke and Campbell both find the left front bunker while Purdy slices a horrible stroke into the crowd. What can only be described as a fat kid picks the ball up but his mother tells him to put it back before, presumably, he eats it. Els, meanwhile, hits another lovely lazy shot onto the green to about eight feet and holes for birdie. Okay, I've seen the South African on two holes now and he's played them in three under! Clarke gives a brief masterclass from the bunker before they move on. On the way back in, I catch the all-Spanish trio of Sergio Garcia, Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano and Carlos Rodiles. They're on the 16th green. Fernandez-Gonazalo holes a nice putt as does Garcia who greets it with a clenched first of celebration. Does that mean he's holed one at last? More likely, he's just won a side-bet.

1505: There's Sam Torrance. That's another 25pts. Back outside again.

1500: Well, I've come back in again. Not because of the heat but just to write a quick entry about Ernie Els. The third hole runs parallel to the press tent and as I step outside Ernie is preparing to hit his approach to the 429-yard par four. He has probably a six or seven iron in his hands. With a beautifully ryhthmical swing he clips the ball straight towards the flag but when it lands on the green the crowd are strangely quiet. Then a couple of seconds later there's a massive roar and lots of waving of arms. Ernie has holed it for an eagle two!

1455: Sunglasses. Check. Hat. Check. Sun cream. Applied. Right, it's time to brave the blistering heat outside.

1435: Some good celebrity points in the bank now after a trip to the press canteen. On the table opposite is former Ryder Cup captain Bernard Gallacher - that's 25pts. And stood at the door is daughter Kirsty to give me another 20pts. I briefly contemplate falling spectactulary over a table full of dirty plates and shouting "Put that in Kirsty's Home Videos" but I believe strongly in personal dignity. Everyone is dripping with sweat in the canteen and it's certainly no place for the pregnant Kirsty to be so she wonders outside to walk the course. Oh, and I just remembered we saw ex-Liverpool star Didi Hamann hanging around the clubhouse last night so that's 25pts. And, hang about, Grandstand presenter Hazel Irvine's just walked past. It's all happening here, it really is.

1400: How's this for a good omen for all of us who've backed Davis Love at 100/1 this week..... the last time Hoylake staged an Open was in 1967. I've just logged on to the 'This Day in Music' website and the No.1 back then was the Beatles with 'All You Need Is Love'.

1345: An Open is always good for celebrity spotting and I'm going to introduce a scoring system this year and see how many I can rack up. As this is Liverpool, then surely the ace in the pack is Tarby. The 'honest broker from the bank of smiles' scores 100 points and I'll award myself 75pts for spotting Brucie, 50pts for Lynchy and, beyond the 'Big Three', 30pts for anyone else who appeared in Sunday Night at the London Palladium, 25pts for any sportsman or sportswoman and 20pts for any other celeb. The good news is that Tarby and Brucie were both in the crowd at Wimbledon recently so they're clearly doing the sporting rounds this summer. On the train journey over I was wondering if Tarby owned a kind of Playboy-style mansion somewhere on the Wirral. At 'Tarbuck Towers' everything would be golf-themed of course. So if you witnessed a foursome taking place, it wouldn't be a pair of mightily chested blondes making out with two Hollywood 'A' listers, rather Hale and Pace playing Texas Scramble with Ronnie Corbett and Frank Carson. In another room, Sean Connery and Roger de Courcey could be lazily chipping sand-irons into the cleavage of a giant cardboard cut-out of Racquel Welch. Of course, there would be real women there too. June Whitfield could serve tea and coffee while Babs Windsor could wiggle around with a plate full of cakes and biscuits responding to lustful comments from Lennie Bennett and Jerry Stevens with "you've got a sauce". And to introduce some real x-rated action, why not set aside a room for Robin Askwith, some birds off Holyoaks and a bubble machine.

1315: I looked up at the famous big yellow Open scoreboards yesterday and noticed the words 'fire risk'. Are they made out of something highly inflammable? Or are we being warned that Hoylake could actually catch fire? It's hot but surely not that hot.

1305: In the pub last night, Harry's friend Richie told me that, out of pure coincidence, he'd been at Hoylake on the day when Phil Mickelson turned up out of the blue for a practice round. There haven't actually been any reports on how Mickelson played but Richie revealed that the left-hander was spraying it all over the place. Despite that, I definitely expect Mickelson to feature heavily this week but I can see him being edged out in a finish as his wayward driving and demons from Winged Foot finally take their toll.

1300: As in 2003, the man sat next to me in the press tent is Dick Turner. Dick, appropriately enough, works for the Daily Sport and is already pestering Harry and I for tips (that's tips). We're currently discussing the winning score and reckon that everyone is getting a bit carried away with the idea that scores are going to be incredibly low. You can lay -18 or better at just over 2/1 on Betfair and that looks worth a play. David Howell is thinking the same and said in his press conference: "I just don't think it's going to be as low as everyone is assuming. I really don't."

1220: Open fever is really spreading around Liverpool this week. I'm staying in a place called Higher Bebington - about 20 minutes from Hoylake - and all the talk in the pub last night seemed to be about the golf. A big group of girls were even shouting "give us another beer Tiger" to the black barman so even the casual racism has a golfing theme.

1215: The highest placed English golfer in the world rankings, David Howell, came in earlier for interview and was asked about how the Brits would cope with the heat. He seemed to think it wouldn't be a problem and given his dreadful Open record (five missed cuts and nothing better than tied 42nd) it's no wonder that he regards the sunny, windless conditions as a "pleasant surprise".

1200: It's another absolutely scorching hot today here at Hoylake and thank god for the air conditioning in the press tent. One of the fancied runners - Trevor Immelman - withdrew from the event last night after flying back to the USA to be with his wife for the birth of their first child. Last night was the first night I had apart from my new baby boy Joe and it was strange waking up this morning and not going through our regular routine of feeding him whilst watching Golf Central Daily at 7am. Technically, this morning was the chance for a first lie-in since he was born in April but I completely blew it and woke up at 6.30am.