ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — The names Tiger Woods must master at this British Open are not the usual suspects he faces at other major championships, like Vijay Singh or Phil Mickelson or Ernie Els.

It's Sutherland — not Kevin or David, but the tiny pot bunker that looms large on the fourth fairway at St. Andrews.

There is Cartgate and Coffins, Cat's Trap and Lion's Mouth, Kruger and Mrs. Kruger.

And, of course, there's Hell.

The strongest line of defense at any British Open is the wind that whips across links courses, although make no mistake about the Old Course. It's all about avoiding the brutal bunkers, 112 of them, some of which can't be seen until a player gets to the green and looks behind him.

Woods won five years ago at St. Andrews by failing to hit into a single bunker over four days, which helps explain why he set a major championship record at 19-under 269 and finished eight shots ahead of anyone else.

"That's how golf is meant to be played," Woods said. "You have to think about your placement. You have to picture a trajectory and shape and try to hit that shape and that trajectory on your spot, and it will be fine. If you don't, there's a chance that you can get some pretty bad spots out here."

Woods will try to avoid them again when the 134th British Open begins today at St. Andrews.

This figures to be a momentous occasion, as it usually is when the oldest major returns to the home of golf. For starters, Jack Nicklaus is playing his 164th and final major championship. Nicklaus once said there were three types of British Opens — those in England, those in Scotland and those at St. Andrews.

As much as he has played the Old Course — this is his eighth Open at St. Andrews — he sounds as though he has developed a close and personal relationship with its bunkers.

"I don't know all the bunkers, obviously, but I know a fair number of them," Nicklaus said. "I guess not many courses have names, but I go through the golf course and I name 15 or 20 bunkers, however they pop out of my head. I would never think of that in any other place."

The bunkers can be so treacherous that Nicklaus and Gary Player, who had nearly a century of major championship golf between them, asked a rules official in 2000 whether they were allowed to take an unplayable lie out of a bunker, and whether hitting the sodden wall in the backswing was a penalty.

Woods said his legacy at St. Andrews — no bunkers — required no small amount of luck. There was that tee shot on the 10th hole in the final round that was headed for three pot bunkers when it skipped over them.

"I should have been in probably three or five bunkers, easily," he said. "Just off the tee shots alone, it happened to hop over a bunker and catch a side and kick left or right of it. That happens. Fortunately for me, it was happening that week. I got lucky a few times.

"This golf course, it's kind of funny," Woods said. "You play along here and you think, 'What is a bunker here for?' And all of a sudden the wind switches and you go, 'Oh, there it is.' That's the beauty of playing here."