Golf”s third major of the season, the British Open Golf Championship, tees it up Thursday at Royal Lytham and St. Annes alongside the English coast. This is the 141st running of golf”s oldest championship and it is the 11th time that the top professionals of the game have tried to master the links at Royal Lytham.
It”s crucial to follow the weather in Great Britain some two to three months prior to the playing of the Open Championship. Unlike established American championship courses with their pristine conditions, the Open courses on the rotation do not rely upon sprinkler systems, heated greens and computer technology to measure ph factors. Instead, the nuances of the course set-up for the British Open is determined by the whims of Mother Nature.
The past few months have been consistently wet on England”s western shores. This means that the rough will be especially thick and gnarly. The greens will be more accepting of long iron shots and the putting surfaces certainly will not be Augusta National or Olympic Club speedy. With that in mind, the eventual winner of the Open Championship a week from Sunday will be a rock-solid ball striker who hits a high percentage of fairways and follows that up by hitting an even higher percentage of greens in regulation. Aside from the necessity for the eventual champion to avoid the thick and luscious rough, one must also be an accurate ball striker to the extent that the majority of Royal Lytham”s 206 sand bunkers are largely avoided.
Finally, say what you will about the international nature of golf at its highest levels, more often than not, there is a distinct advantage in knowing how to play links golf, a semi-common occurrence on the European Tour that is seldom approximated in America. Golfers such as Phil Mickelson do not excel at links-style golf because of his high ball flight whereas others such as out-of-nowhere defending champion Darren Clarke has shown a penchant to controlling the ball in excessive winds as well as the mental toughness required to handle inclement weather and the humps and bumps of links golf.
If I”m going to take a stab at it and try to prognosticate who among the 156 golfers entered in the Open Championship field are capable of hoisting the Claret Jug a week from Sunday, my short list will include great ball strikers, experienced veterans and linksters with a European Tour background who can handle the wind and the rain.
My Open Championship favorite already has a Claret Jug on his mantelpiece back home in South Africa. Louis Oosthuizen won the British Open in a runaway at St. Andrews in 2010. He lost a playoff to Bubba Watson at this year”s Masters. Along the way, he already has two wins this year, namely at the Malaysian Open and the African Open. Most telling is the fact that Oosthuizen leads the European Tour in the crucial category of greens in regulation. True, it is a crapshoot to predict a winner among 156 contestants, but I feel that all of the stars are aligned for Louis Oosthuizen to win a second Open Championship title.
If he weren”t four weeks removed from his personally disappointing second-place finish at the United States Open, I would be high on Northern Irishman Graeme McDowell to prevail at Royal Lytham and St. Annes. However, in his efforts to win at the Olympic Club, McDowell may have very little left in his golfing tank. McDowell, who splits time on the American and European Tour, is No. 1 in America in the all-important accuracy off the tee category. He is one tough competitor as evidenced by his U.S. Open victory at Pebble Beach and his 2010 Ryder Cup exploits in Wales. Yet it remains to be seen if he can adequately put the disappointment of San Francisco behind him.
Nicolas Colsaerts of Belgium is not a household name among American fans of golf, but he does have seven top-10 finishes this year in Europe. He won the prestigious Volvo World Match Play, came in second at the China Open and third at the Sicilian Open. He is ranked 14th in greens in regulation and is an up-and-coming star. Another young Euro golfer is Francesco Molinari of Italy.
Third in hitting greens in regulation behind Oosthuizen and Rory McIlroy, Molinari recently won the Open de Espana and finished runner-up at the Open de France. He has five top 10s on the European Tour this year. If there is going to be a breakthrough winner at Lythan next week, look for Colsaerts and Molinari to have something to say about it.
It”s been three years since Irishman Padraig Harrington won his third major title. He is on the wrong side of 40 years of age, and yet he has had a resurgence this year with an eighth-place finish at the Masters and a top-four finish at the U.S. Open. Harrington hits a lot of fairways and greens, is great at controlling the flight of his golf ball, and knows how to handle major championship pressure. I like Harrington”s chances at Lytham and St. Annes. A win there would be the icing on an outstanding Hall of Fame career.
If Harrington is back on center stage after a three-year hiatus, it is truly remarkable that Paul Lawrie is part of the major championship puzzle, some 13 years after winning a British Open playoff at Carnoustie over Justin Leonard and the tortured Frenchman, Jean van de Velde. Lawrie won the Qatar Masters earlier this year against a strong international field. He came in second at the BMW Championship, the European Tour”s version of the Players Championship, and was third at the Volvo World Match Play. He is 14th in driving accuracy this year. Not too many people know much about Lawrie outside of the fact that he was the beneficiary of van de Velde”s final-hole collapse at Carnoustie, but he is a tough competitor who plays well in bad weather.
The 141st edition of the Open Championship commences on Thursday at Royal Lytham and St. Annes outside of the English town of Blackpool. Recent past champions have included David Duval and Tom Lehman, best known for their ball striking abilities. Because of the thick rough, enhanced from a wet English spring, and the plethora of bunkers throughout the facility, accuracy off the tee and into the greens will be paramount. Throw in wind, rain and links golf, and you”ve got just another classic British Open Golf Championship.
