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If I could have parred the next 34 holes I would have won one of the four spots available for the Championship but instead I decided to get my money's worth.

PGA pro Nevil Bland chanced his arm, like the hundreds across the world, in a bid to play in this year's Open only to fall at the final hurdle. In the first of his sideways takes on this year's Open, Bland, tongue firmly in cheek, explains just went wrong.

After winning the Regional qualifying round by three shots at Lindrick I felt I had a good chance of winning one of the four available spots on offer the field of 96 in the Local Final Qualifying stage last week.

I was down to play at Southport & Ainsdale, where the first hole is a 204 yard par 3 with the green sitting like an oasis in a river of grassy dunes. The tee shot was into the wind. I nailed a 4-iron and made par and then birdied the second to be one under.

If I could have parred the next 34 holes I would have won one of the four spots available for the Championship but instead I decided to get my money's worth and shot 76, 82 to finish on +14. As all good athletes believe, it wasn't my fault - instead I can blame each of the 14 dropped shots to the following events:-

The wind on my practice day was in the complete opposite direction (1 shot)
Mondays tee time was 1:03 and the wind started in earnest at 12:58 (1 shot)
I swear the R&A had added three new pot bunkers overnight which grabbed my ball (3 shots)
My playing partners kept driving deep into the thick stuff and I was getting worn out ball searching (1 shot)
My playing partners kept making unbelievable pars from the deep stuff which annoyed me (1 shot)
Our B&B had been double booked on the Monday night and we were stranded (1 shot)
Another pro and his caddy were also double booked and after much shouting we witnessed a room key used as a missile followed by the world's smallest Jack Russell terrier almost used as a football (1 shot)
The landlady kindly arranged for us to stay with her friends who I could best describe as 'The Addams Family'! (1 shot)
My 5 iron was used to jam the door to our room closed as there was no lock, it wouldn't shut and they repeatedly invited us to 'have fun in their bathroom' any time of the day or night (3 shots)
My caddy, James, misinterpreted my instructions to bring essential items with him and turned up with just a whole box of Shreddies and a homemade chocolate cake (1 shot - but nice cake)

So I'm not there - however, there are 156 players who are and one them has to win, so who's going to win The Open Championship?

The course at Royal Birkdale is playing most unlike a links course, the airways are soft and the green fringes are quite lush. Ten years ago at Royal Birkdale the players were hitting irons from most of the tees as the course was so dry, not so this year so a big hitter could be in the running.

I'm going to stick my neck out and say that my pick for this year will see a successful defence by Padraig Harrington. He didn't play at Loch Lomond but chose to play the Irish PGA Championship instead and won that title for the second successive year and avoided all the media attention in the process.

I was at a conference with Dr Paul Hurrion earlier this year who works with Padraig and it turns out that he is obsessed with gaining distance - his daily gym schedule rivals that of Tiger's and to improve his balance and core stability he even goes to the lengths of brushing his teeth and shaving whilst standing on one foot! Try it and you'll see how hard it is to do.

Anybody with that dedication to their craft has got to have a good chance.

A lot of the other players in form are non-major winners like Lee Westwood, Adam Scott, Garcia, Steve Stricker and Ross Fisher which gives someone like Harrington an edge. The last nine holes on Sunday of a major are when a player's insecurities can surface.

Of the American contenders I would choose Hunter Mahan who is leading the PGA Tour greens in regulation stats or Zach Johnson who is a natural low ball hitter who should fare well if the wind blows.

Read Bland's Birkdale Blog all week at The Open here on PGA.info