Planes, strains and mobiles take Whitehouse to Muirfield

If ever a man has cause to feel that destiny is calling him, then it is Tom Whitehouse. Just to make today's starting line-up the 22-year-old from Coleshill, Warwickshire, has had to endure two play-offs – both of which he lost – rely on a plethora of professionals pulling out with injuries, make a cross-channel flight in almost record time and then stand by his cellphone sweating buckets waiting for the green light.

If they do ever make a film of Whitehouse's incredible journey to Muirfield, they should call it "Planes, Sprains and Red Hot Mobiles". And all this with influenza. The Tom Whitehouse experience began a week ago last Sunday in north-eastern Italy.

"I was playing a Challenge Tour event and doing alright until I came down with a fever," recalls Whitehouse, who turned professional this year and whose biggest cheque to date has been £4,000 on Europe's satellite tours. "I was due to play in the regional qualifiers of The Open on the Monday but couldn't get a flight out of Venice on the Sunday. The only way I could do it was to get up at 4am, fly to Brussels and then on to Manchester. I got in at about 9.40am. I was due off at midday so I had about two hours to travel the 100-odd miles to Little Aston. I got there with about six minutes to spare. I was feeling terrible."

The effort hardly looked worth it when Whitehouse ran up a double bogey to crash out of a play-off to get through to the final qualifying rounds.

"I was 77th alternate and I rang up to see if there was any chance of getting in. They told me my best chance was to hang around North Berwick, one of four qualifying courses, to see if anyone pulled out."

By now destiny had found its child. "I was the last to get in," he says, "so I had to play the course blind with about five minutes preparation."

In any other year, Whitehouse's two 68s would have been good enough. This time, with the 96 competitors battling for a measly six places, it got him into a three-man play-off for two spots. Once again his nerve failed him and a bogey on the second play-off hole looked to have finally call a halt to the adventure. Fate, however, was not giving up that easily.

As second alternate, Whitehouse needed two defections to make The Open. First, Paul Azinger sprained a rib, meaning that Whitehouse was next man in and the suspense mounted. He waited and he waited and every time the mobile rang he feverishly unflipped it only to hear a relative or friend asking if he had got in yet.

"It was going off so often that when it rang as as I was coming off the 18th at Muirfield after practising on Tuesday night, I asked my caddy to answer it." On hearing a bigwig's voice say that the American Kenny Perry had pulled out, the caddy's face turned white.

"The good news is that you're in," he told Whitehouse. "The better news is that you're playing with Olazabal." His reaction was both short and unprintable. Family and friends were called on the well-worn phone and Willie Aitchison (Lee Trevino's famous old caddy) used his contacts to book some rooms in a local hotel.

"My mum is coming up straight away, but my dad wont be here until tomorrow," Whitehouse said yesterday. "My mum couldn't wait." Nor can Whitehouse's fellow members at Maxstoke Park, where the fairways will lie empty this weekend as the club heads north to cheer him on. There they will find a young man who is extraordinarily calm despite finding himself starring in a dream that he never suspected would happen.

"I played with Justin Leonard and that helped a lot," Whitehouse said after practising with the 1997 Open champion yesterday. "Willie has told me to relax and that the hardest thing will be getting to the first tee. After that I should be OK." Destiny, no doubt, will do the rest.