Jul 15 2009
A Look at the Open Championship
This post is the first post written by our new writer, Brendan. So, we’d like to welcome him, and his sarcasm, to the Fairway Bunker. Look for more from him, periodically, in the future. By the way, he’s fair game, so hurl your nasty comments his way.
As the Open Championship approaches, the question on most people’s minds is… “Will Tiger win?” And the answer is probably going to be, unfortunately for TV ratings and bandwagon golf fans, “No.”
Tiger has been on a high from winning his own tournament at Congressional as well as four other top five finishes this year. But when it comes to the majors, Tiger has come up short finishing 6th in both championships this year.
Now, at Bethpage Black, you could argue that his finish was due to unfair tee times and bad weather, because he started with a 74 after rain delays, then averaged a 67 the other three days. But Tiger wouldn’t agree with that. He thought that he had two of the three aspects of his game working but didn’t have solid putting. He missed many birdie opportunities to have a shot at the lead.
At Augusta, he just wasn’t “on” (and by “on” I mean he wasn’t sinking birdies every other hole). I’m predicting a similar performance to Bethpage for Tiger; he’ll play well and make his ridiculous shots and finish in the top five… no wait, six.
The most exciting thing about this tournament is that we get to watch Padraig Harrington chase his third consecutive win at the British Open. Obviously, the odds are against him because no one has won three times in a row since Peter Thomson made his run in 1954-56.
Within the last 50 years, four others have had two consecutive wins, including Tiger Woods with wins in ‘05 and ’06, and Arnold Palmer in ’61 and ’62, but neither pulled out that third win. Although Harrington’s performance this year has been sub-par finishing 35th in the Masters and missing the cut in the U.S. Open, I’m excited to see him try.
However, before he made this 2 win run of late, he either did not play or missed the cut in the previous three British Opens, and tied for 22nd in 2003. But don’t let his performance discourage you, he’ll come out flying. He did win his third Irish PGA Championship in a row this year, so maybe that’s a good sign (but the Irish PGA is probably more equivalent to the WNBA than anything else), and worst-come-to-worst he’s Irish, so you know he’ll get a beer out of this.
Joking aside, good luck Padraig.
