There isn't anything much more British than the weather.
It is as much a part of our national psyche as the stiff upper lip, the bulldog spirit and lumpy custard. We serve up weather forecasts more frequently than cups of tea and we revel in the minutiae of isobars, cloud cover and precipitation.
Challenge
And sure, Woods has three Open triumphs to his name, more than any other current player, but it is now fully five years and 20 tournaments since he was in the winner's enclosure of the titles he holds most dear.
That is comfortably the longest dry Major spell of his career and the reality is he is going to have to completely re-think his approach to championship weekends if he is to challenge on Sunday afternoon.
Consider this. Tiger has not broken 70 on a Major weekend since the Saturday of the 2012 Masters, and his average weekend score in these events in the past year-and-a-half is 73.
The last time he shot under par in the Open on a Saturday or Sunday? In 2007. It suggests there is a LOT wrong with his psyche when it comes to the crunch these days, and not playing at all for a full month is hardly the ideal way to put that right.
When you add in the little factoid that the Open's recent history is all about first-time Major winners - in fact, seven of the last 10 have won their ONLY Major title here, namely Darren Clarke, Louis Oosthuizen, Stewart Cink, Todd Hamilton, Ben Curtis, David Duval and Paul Lawrie - it seems even more unlikely that a predictable name will triumph this year.
Upbeat
So, if not Woods, then who else might be in the Claret come Sunday night?
Well, seeing as this is the Land of the Free, they really like the chances of Phil Mickelson, despite the fact the world No 5 has only two top 10 Open finishes in 19 attempts.
His Scottish Open win last Sunday is primarily the reason for American bookies being so upbeat on Phil's chances, but when you consider it was his first European title of any kind since 1993, that doesn't inspire too much confidence.
Rose, fairly predictably, gets a decent amount of support, and not just from his US-based fans here in Orlando where he lives, while Graeme McDowell, our other 'local' boy, is equally highly rated to tough it out on the unforgiving Scottish links.
But the US media do also highlight a couple of other intriguing choices to be at least among the contenders, and it is worth noting that several sources are already calling it the Wide Open tournament, as picking a winner really does look like a hazardous proposition.
Contender
Dustin Johnson - a perennial Nearly Man of the Majors - and Matt Kuchar will both carry a fair number of transatlantic hopes with them, while new whizkid Jordan Spieth is the kind of where-did-he-come-from contender who could easily follow in the footsteps of Mssrs Hamilton, Curtis and Duval.
Australian Jason Day, Belgian Nicolas Colsaerts and Spain's Sergio Garcia also have their odds-making champions over here, although it is hard to see Garcia being able to hold his nerve on the final day of a Major when his recent history makes Tiger's weekend wobbles seem positively rock solid by comparison.
Ultimately, trying to pick Major winners is increasingly a mug's game, which is why my wallet will be staying firmly under its medieval lock and key this weekend, confirming those rumours that it last emerged to buy a round when Hogan was still a boy.
But, if I WAS to make a rash rush to the bookies, I just might have a little flutter on Adam Scott, whose Green Jacket is still neatly pressed from its Masters debut in April.
With the second Ashes Test also likely to be boiling up nicely on Sunday afternoon, I fancy there might well be at least one Aussie with something to celebrate.
