The visitor arriving at the site of this year's Open Championship goes through contrasting experiences in a matter of yards. After leaving the hustle and bustle of Waterloo Road, it's a sharp turn towards the sea and suddenly the snarling traffic has gone and there is the terrain associated with the most noble of all golf courses: towering dunes and swaying marram grass. But while eight Opens have been held at Royal Birkdale since 1954, this one appears to need an asterisk to record that Tiger Woods is absent.

Arriving on Sunday to cover my sixth Open at this venue, I searched for differences and had difficulty in finding any. The springy grass high above the 12th green on the hole that Tom Watson described as his favourite in the world remains one of the most ideal positions from which to spectate. The clubhouse gleamed in the brilliant sunshine and still resembles a lido on the South Coast.

What makes Royal Birkdale different is that there is no equivalent of Ganton cake, the confection that you eat at teatime at the club in the Yorkshire Wolds. The tradition of rounding off a meal with a glass of kummel, which exists at Prestwick, is not continued here. The favoured form of play at Royal Birkdale is singles and four-balls, not foursomes as at Muirfield, where the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers play.

Turnberry has its lighthouse, St Andrews its history, Royal St George's its rolling fairways, Royal Troon its railway hole. Royal Birkdale has a thumping great practice ground, greens cupped by dunes and tees raised above the fairways. Almost every hole is played to a direction different from the last. Birkdale is monstrous without being a monster, unrelenting without being unconquerable. If Open courses were judged by categories and rated out of ten, Royal Birkdale would have no category higher or lower than nine.

Is this course, on what is being described as England's Golf Coast, different in July 2008? Slightly. Any major championship without Woods is not quite the same. In the United States, the television ratings for a Woods-less tournament are sometimes half what they are when the world No1 is in contention. But in assessing whether viewing figures will be affected, the BBC reports that the number of people who watched Padraig Harrington and Sergio García play off at Carnoustie last year was satisfactory.

“I was in meetings last week and all the signs were that the whole town was fully booked,” Dan Grice, of Sefton Council, said. “Townspeople were telling us, 'Yes, we're full.' There simply aren't any more hotel rooms. Every indication is that we expected to get 200,000 people and we are going to get 200,000 people.”

The R&A said that attendances yesterday for practice were up on Carnoustie last year but down on Hoylake two years ago. “I will be surprised if the overall attendance tops the 200,000 mark, but I suppose if we have the classic Justin Rose v Lee Westwood showdown and the sun was out, it could get to the 230,000 we had at Hoylake,” an official said.

The absence of Woods, who is recuperating from knee surgery, has had no effect on turnover, according to Ladbrokes, who are expecting that up to £30million will be bet on the Open. “Woods's no-show means we have a more balanced book than usual,” Nick Weinberg, a spokesman for the bookmakers, said. “There will still be winners or losers for us, but nothing comparable to a market that includes the American.”

Something is missing, nonetheless. Although the flowers are blooming in Lord Street, it is undeniable that all is not quite as it would be if Woods were here. “It would be silly to say that Tiger's absence would not have any impact on the attendance,” Peter Dawson, the chief executive of the R&A, said. “He is such a big draw. But the weather could easily be a much bigger factor.” But is the Open weakened by Woods's absence? It is demeaning to the other golfers to think that because the player who has three Open titles among his 14 major championships is not here, the Open is significantly lessened. Diminished, perhaps, but not significantly weakened.

Jim Furyk seemed affronted at the suggestion that it might be. “As far as the asterisk is concerned, I don't see that,” the American said. “Whoever won here, 20 years from now they're not going to say, 'Well, he was the British Open champion in 2008 but, by the way, Tiger Woods wasn't there, so no one is going to care.' I always view it as it doesn't matter to us who's in the field. As a player, I'm not really worried about who's here and who's not. I've got enough to worry about - whether my game is in shape, hitting the ball well.

“It's kind of a chicken attitude to walk up and say, 'Well, he's not here, now I've got a better opportunity.' I'd have a tough time looking at myself in the mirror each morning if that was the way I was thinking.”

There have been eight Opens at Royal Birkdale, seven without Tiger Woods. The ninth will be without him, too. So what?