A telephone call from Ernie Els has helped Thomas Bjorn put his British Open collapse firmly behind him. Els called Bjorn on Monday to offer words of encouragement, the 2002 British Open champion persuading the Dane to look firmly to the future starting with tomorrow's Irish Open at Portmarnock.
"He (Els) called me on Monday night and said 'Now you know what people have known for a long time - that you have the game to win majors'," Bjorn told a news conference at the Dublin links this afternoon.
"Ernie and I are good friends but it means a lot to get a call like that, means a lot to how I approach the next few weeks."
Bjorn has avoided watching video footage of his double-bogey at the short 16th at Royal St George's, which cost him his first major and handed the Claret Jug to rookie Ben Curtis.
"Watching that ball roll back like the biggest snowball in the world; I've no desire to sit down and watch that," he explained Bjorn.
"I hope the day comes when I will sit down and watch it and laugh at what I did in that bunker. But I learned a lot last week how good I can be. I feel I'm taking it in my stride, but even if I win five majors I'll feel it should have been six."
The 32-year-old blamed completely different sand to the other bunkers for his problems on Sunday, but played down the two-shot penalty he received for slamming his club into sand on the 17th in the first round.
"You don't lose or win the Open on a Thursday and those two shots had nothing to do with what happened because things would have been different," he said.
Bjorn will play his first two rounds with Padraig Harrington, Europe's top-ranked player at number nine in the world.
The contest has returned to the famous Portmarnock links for the first time since 1990 when Jose Maria Olazabal won. The Spaniard is also in the field, as is Britain's Mark Roe, controversially disqualified from the Open last Saturday.
Portmarnock, at 7,363 yards, is officially the longest course on the European Tour, two yards longer than 1999 British Open venue Carnoustie in Scotland.