By Steve Scott, golf correspondent

THE WORLD’S top players at the 2007 Open will remove the “Car-Nasty” tag from the Carnoustie Championship links once and for all, believes the man largely responsible for the toughest course on the championship rota.

Carnoustie Links superintendent John Philp remains unrepentant about the set-up of the course for the 1999 Championship, when the severity of the rough was criticised as Scotland’s Paul Lawrie produced a shock win after Jean Van de Velde’s famous collapse on the final hole.

However Philp, now 22 years in charge at Carnoustie and awarded the MBE for his efforts in returning the famous Angus course to the Open rota, believes that a score double-figures under par will be required to win when the 136th championship is staged there from July 19-22, compared to Lawrie’s six-over winning score eight years ago.

“An under-par score will win, without a doubt,” said Philp yesterday at the R&A’s Open media day.

“The players are just so good now. The big factor is the weather, if we get wind here it’s a serious problem, but if we get decent conditions with winds up to 10mph and not much more, I can imagine eight to 10-under quite easily.

“You’ll remember the Scottish Open in 95, 12-under was the winning score by Wayne Riley. The course was quite dry, not a lot of rough, Tiger Woods played but he was just a boy and we didn’t have an Open class field.”

Winning aggregate scores at Carnoustie are usually much higher than elsewhere on the Open rota, with the record being set in 1975 when Tom Watson won with a total of 279.

“It was played on a shorter course, off the member’s tees as opposed to what we call the Hogan tees, but anyway course length doesn’t really matter these days,” he continued.

“The players have so much ability that if they get the conditions they’ll score on here, and maybe the monster tag will die a death a wee bit at last.”

Philp doesn’t believe that rough conditions will be the same as 1999 and described the criticism from some quarters about the set-up of the course then as “sour grapes, and water off a duck’s back.”

“We weren’t fussed, really, we knew how much work had been successful,” he continued. “I knew what my staff had put into the course, it just wasn’t highlighted with all the attention on one aspect.

“People forget that Paul Lawrie shot 67 on this supposedly impossible monster of a golf course to win, and then played so well in the play-off, he’s never got the credit he deserved for that. As for the comment that the Open got the champion it deserved, that’s sour grapes, just daft.

“People will come up with things like accusing us of putting fertiliser on the rough when they aren’t doing too well, but it’s just whingeing. We didn’t need to do that in 1999 because the weather did it for us, it was the same on courses all the way up the east coast that year.

“There’s no wrong to be righted this year. If the players go away feeling it was a fairer test this time, then fair enough, we want them to feel it’s not a monster or tricked up or anything like that.

“If players choose to look at it that way because they haven’t done so well, so be it, but we’d like them to think we set up a challenging golf course but something that’s feasible and they can score on.”

There is little chance of the same severity of rough this year anyway, he believes.

“After a drought summer like last year we just won’t get the same growth,” he predicted. “I’d be seriously surprised if it happened, the course will play a lot easier, the penalty off the fairway won’t be anything like as severe, and the scope for a recovery shot should be much greater.”

Philp gave a guarded welcome to the course changes introduced for this championship, with the alterations of more contouring at 17 and 18 made by his own staff.

“I think you can argue to a degree about the changes at the third but there’s certainly more options off the tee,” he said.

“Sixth is definitely a big improvement, it’s certainly more inviting than it was in ‘99, and I hope we see drivers being hit and not players laying up short of the centre bunkers, and then playing it as a full three-shotter, as some did then.”

Meanwhile R&A chief executive Peter Dawson said that there would be no special exemption to allow Van de Velde to return to the scene of his amazing adventures eight years ago.

“If anyone deserved an invitation to an Open Championship at Carnoustie it would be him,” conceded Dawson.

“We all know what happened and I remain amazed by it, but the Open is a major championship and we’ve never issued invitations in the modern era.

“This is the Open Championship and people earn their way in through exemption or qualification, and while it is emotionally tempting in Jean’s case I’m afraid it won’t happen.”