GLOBE-TROTTING golf ace Simon Dyson treads virtual new ground in tomorrow’s third Major of the season – The Open Championship.

Royal St George’s in Sandwich is the venue for the 140th Open Championships – and it will be the first time the 33-year-old Dyson will have played there in his 11 years as a professional.

The York king of clubs cannot even recall the occasion of his only ever appearance at the renowned course in Kent, where he shipped up during an illustrious amateur career.

But Dyson remains unfazed about his lack of knowledge of the Royal St George’s track because he is in The Open when an absolute fluke and jarring injury almost robbed him of an automatic place in the annual battle for the Claret Jug.

“It’s fair to say it will be like a whole new course for me,” said the world number 74 ahead of his practice rounds at the 7,211-yard course, where par is 70.

“I played there once before when I was an amateur but I really can’t remember that much about it, so it’s going to be like fresh ground for me.

“But whether I know it or not the big thing for me is that it is The Open – the big one. And getting in it has been great. I can’t wait for the tournament to start.

“For me, this is the ultimate challenge. It’s the ultimate prize.”

Dyson is one of the first threesomes off in action tomorrow. In the sixth group off the tee in the first round he will be partnered by America’s top-50 man Gary Woodland and now Denmark’s Thomas Bjorn, who has been drafted in as the next reserve after former world number one Vijay Singh withdrew through injury.

Bjorn, twice a member of winning European Ryder Cup teams in 1997 and 2002, coincidentally was just a few shots away from landing the coveted title the last time The Open was held at Royal St George’s in 2003. He was two shots ahead with only three holes to play with eventual winner Ben Curtis in the clubhouse.

But Bjorn double-bogeyed the par-three 16th and dropped another shot on the penultimate hole to blow his chance and allow Curtis to capture the coveted Claret Jug.

For Dyson, this will be his eighth appearance in the game’s oldest and most revered Major.

His best placing was 34th in 2005 when he also had the honour of hitting the very first shot off the tee when The Open was played at the game’s spiritual headquarters, St Andrew’s.

Last year – his golden year so far – he played in all four Majors, but tomorrow will be his first of this season having not finished in the world’s top 64 at the end of last year.

He was destined for an automatic place in the 140th Championship until a Spanish duo of Pablo Larrazabal and Sergio Garcia surged from nowhere to take the top two places in the BMW International in Munich last month.

Then his bid to qualify from the French Open was marred by a troublesome back muscle injury that saw him miss the mid-way cut. But Dyson was in as first reserve, taking his place among the high-class field when America’s David Toms dropped out.

And he steps on Royal St George’s in healthy form after his joint 25th finish in the weather-blasted Scottish Open.