FINAL qualifying for the Open Golf Championship is very much a hit or miss business but Salisbury's Gary Emerson seems to have got it down to a fine art.

He'll go into the weekend hostilities on the Lytham courses looking for his SIXTH qualification in ten years. And he's in the mood to go through.

Only the top ten players from the four final qualifying venues go through to the big event at Royal Lytham on Thursday week but Emo is so fast out of his blocks, that it would be daft to bet against him.

He's a fast starter as his European Tour record bears out, but this year Emerson is looking beyond qualification. He aims to get there and stay there, because in his five Opens so far, the Broadstone tournament professional has failed to beat the cut.

But at 37 he has never played better. He guaranteed his playing rights on the European Tour for the fourth year running with a top six finish in last week's Murphy's Irish Open, a performance which took his season's earnings to £90,750 and lifted him to 69th in the Volvo European Order of Merit.

He's figured in both the putting and driving stats this season and the father of two young daughters, who lives in the sleepy little village of Sixpenny Handley near Salisbury, heads a strong area representation in the final qualifiers.

Also battling it out at Lytham next Sunday and Monday will be another Salisbury man, Andy Beal, now based at the Hamptworth Club near Wellow. A top ten finish in the Great North Open followed by a tie for 35th in the Irish Open lifted Beal into the top 150 in the money order.

He is just a matter of 16 places behind Hayling's Matt Blackey, who had two top ten finishes in South America earlier in the season, but has recently been struggling to make cuts.

Blackey heads for Lytham looking for a sharp upturn in form as indeed does former Ryder Cup man Steve Richardson. As soon as the Lee-on-Solent man returned home from the Great North Open where he shot rounds of 81 and 79, he booked himself in for a lesson with his Portsmouth-based coach Jason Banting.

Two more Hampshire players set for the final qualifiers are Richard Bland from Stoneham and Scott Watson, now teaching at Dummer and looking to qualify for The Open for a third year running.

Bland roared back to form with three sub 70 rounds in last week's Open des Volcans only to blow out with a last day 78. The man from Marchwood last qualified for the Royal Birkdale Open in 1998.