Colin Byrne's Column: If you want to see professional golfers uncharacteristically looking like amateurs but being so professional, then go and watch an Open qualifying event on the south-east coast of England.

There is no advertising, no spectator ropes, no marshals and just one handwritten scoreboard by the clubhouse. To find the teeing area you almost have to stumble upon it as there is not the customary hoarding to guide you towards it. The majority of threeballs march around the links unimpeded by other humans. A small cluster of spectators gather around the star billings.

Ian Woosnam attracted the biggest crowd at Prince's golf course - I counted about 50 punters with the Welshman. One of his playing partners was David Blakeman, who just happens to be coach to Tobias Dier, the young German professional. Competing is just a pastime for the teacher now.

Woosnam was getting agitated by a stray spectator who was not in his way but rather disturbing a group on an adjacent hole. Ian was using his amateur marshalling expertise as he waited for the fairway ahead of him to clear.

Looking back across the scorched fairways dotted with the lush green stains of fertilisation, through the heat haze on the shimmering fescue grasses and over the rolling fairways, the unique scene of links golf in the British Isles in July lay bare and inviting for the seaside golf fan.

The bleachers on St George's next door loomed large for the seven qualifiers out of the 96 entrants at this course. The only way out of Prince's is almost to circumnavigate Royal St George's, so the 89 non-qualifiers had to compound the misery of another missed Open by gazing wistfully, as they headed for home, at what could have been their main venue next door.

If there were not as many spectators as usual at the Open qualifiers then the blame can be laid at the doors of local residents. The Sandwich Bay Residents' Committee decided to charge everyone who would pay the King's ransom of £10 to pass down the Kings Avenue, a private road that leads to the Prince's course. Five pounds is the customary toll for using the route except when the Open is staged here, when the toll has traditionally been waived.

The R & A had already handed over £25,000 for the use of the road for the week on top of £15,000 to upgrade the surface. The locals are keeping up the commercial tradition of the great event by ripping off the golf enthusiast wholesale.

It did not stop John and his father, Bert, from Bolton Old Links from making the journey to Prince's. I spotted Bert, exposing his pallid legs for the first time this year on the balmy Kent coast, following Per-Ulrik Johansson's approach shot to the 16th green.

"Goo un," he enthused in his thick Lancashire accent. "Goo un, git in thar close - 'ee needs two birdies to finish with to 'ave iny chance o' qualifyin'."

It turned out that Bert had no association with Per apart from the fact he enjoyed watching him play. He could never get as close to him otherwise as he could in the Open qualifier.

Himself and his son had rented a caravan in a "very basic" caravan park in Sandwich and were enjoying the 132nd Open well before it started.

It is of course the beauty of the great event that, despite the huge corporate influence, the punter is still the most influential part of the galleries that make the Open the accessible event it still is.

From Jose Trauwitz, who came from Mexico to try to qualify, to the hardened pro like Johansson, who heads straight back to the States after missing out, to the likes of Mitch Kierstenson from Hackers Indoor Golf, who represented his sponsor well with an opening 78, the Open qualifying events are a melting pot of all the elements of the game.

Even Simon Shanks from Kingsdown got a game and lived up to his unfortunate name (for a golfer) with a first-round 86 at Littlestone.

Even the occasional middle-aged once-a-year caddie, with his golf shoes and passionate sighing and groaning at every putt his man pushes just by the hole, is part of a tradition that brings the hardened professional caddie and the casual enthusiast together, however briefly.

Long may we continue to witness the professional golfer behaving like any other weekend hacker, minus all the accoutrements of the modern event, striving to qualify for the best golfing spectacle in the world.