PREDICTIONS tend to be a fool’s errand. Anyone who has tried to foresee the winners of Major Championships recently will vouch for that.

That last seven, after all, have been claimed by players who hadn’t won one before. Will that trend continue here in the 146th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale?

As ever in the fevered build-up to golf’s most cherished and venerable Championship, there are more questions than answers.

With more runners and riders than a race weekend at Aintree and a strength in depth that’s deeper than a burial at sea, the Open Championship is never an exact science.

Henrik Stenson, who claimed his first Major title at Troon a year ago during that magical final-day shoot-out for the ages with an equally inspired Phil Mickelson, is well aware how difficult it will be to keep his hands on the Claret Jug.

Padraig Harrington was the last player to claim back-to-back titles when he followed up his maiden success at Carnoustie in 2007 with victory here at Birkdale the following year.

"I think the competition on a weekly basis is so tight out there and so tough," conceded Stenson of the fearsome competition in the global game’s upper echelons.

"Whether it's a trend or if this is going to continue or not, or if there is going to be a few guys stepping up and becoming second and third-time winners, I guess that's yet to be seen.

"But in general, it's very hard to predict who is going to do well any other week. It's been like that in the last year-and-a-half in the majors, for sure."

Royal Birkdale is a grand, tough and fair links. The weather down in Southport has been sun soaked and has firmed up the track these last couple of days but with rain and a freshening, brisk wind set to move in for the start of the championship the various layers of menace will be intensified and the examination will be even more robust. Technical nous, physical endurance and a hefty degree of mental resolve are the usual traits displayed by the Champion Golfer of the Year and those attributes will be tested at Birkdale.

"It's a solid, strong course and it doesn't give you anything,” said the 2008 champion, Harrington, whose winning total of three-over back then illustrated the exacting nature of the challenge.

“The fairways are pretty flat, the greens are pretty flat, it's all there in front of you. There's no mystery, no trickery. It’s just a big, strong, fair golf course."

Only two of the eight Open champions at Royal Birkdale had not previously won a major - Ian Baker-Finch in 1991 and Peter Thomson, who won the first of his five Open titles in 1954.

Arguably the finest golf course in England, Birkdale invariably identifies great champions. As well as Thomson and Harrington, the roll of honour includes the likes of Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino, Tom Watson and Johnny Miller. When Mark O'Meara won in 1998, he was the reigning Masters champion at the time.

The history of Birkdale therefore suggests that this run of first-timers in the Majors could come to an end. And while the game is full of rising stars and young pretenders, we shouldn’t forget that in the last 10 Open Championships only two players under 30 – Rory McIlroy in 2014 and Louis Oosthuizen in 2010 – have walked away with the Claret Jug. At Troon a year ago, it was two 40-somethings going head-to-head on the final day while recent winners like Ernie Els, Darren Clarke and Mickelson himself have all been into their fifth decade. Look for experience to count here this week.

The young guns will have something to say about that, of course and hotly fancied tips like the rampaging Jon Rahm, Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama, Rickie Fowler and the local Southport lad Tommy Fleetwood are among those who could keep the streak of maiden Major winners going.

Jordan Spieth, who flirted with Open glory at St Andrews in 2015 during his assault on the third leg of a Grand Slam, has been up and down in 2017 but the double Major champ has the precision required for the Birkdale test.

Much of the attention will be focussed on McIlroy and the world No.1 Dustin Johnson. McIlroy has missed three of his last four cuts coming into the third Major of the year.

He continues to insist that his game his “close” and the Northern Irishman does have a habit of exploding out of slumps.

At Hoylake in 2014 he overcame what became known as ‘Freaky Friday’ – he had a habit of following up a fine first round with a calamitous second 18 – and went on to win the Open before adding a WGC title and the PGA Championship to his collection in the space of a few weeks.

Johnson, meanwhile, saw his roaring momentum halted by a slip on some stairs which forced him to withdraw injured from the Masters. Johnson missed the cut at the US Open and comes to Birkdale under plenty of scrutiny.

It’s open season and this particular Open is, well, wide open.