Preview & outright plays:
After the carnage of Carnoustie and wide-open fairways of St. Andrews, it is good to get the Open Championship back to a traditional links set-up. Huge undulations, pot bunkers and hard fairways make this a test unlike any other that most of this week's field will face this year. Course management, shot selection and imagination are essential in Open Championship week. Just as it is proper that the majors in tennis are played on different surfaces, so it is in golf. It makes Tiger's achievement last year all the more remarkable.
However, Tiger will face a very different course to last year. One key aspect of his victory at St Andrews was that he never went in a bunker; when Faldo won there in 1990 he found sand just once. It is not so easy at Lytham. The bunkers are far more numerous - 196 to 112 - and too many bunkers were in out-of-date position at St Andrews - new technology meant they could be carried off the tee. Not so true at Lytham and these are seriously deep pot-hole bunkers! Ballesteros, who won the two Opens at Lytham prior to Lehman in 1996, said that the most important club in the bag on this course was the sand wedge. In addition to the dangerous fairway traps, the greens are hard and slightly raised so the roll-off areas are popular places. These are not the shaved roll-off areas of the US Open, but grassy hollows and, of course, pot bunkers.
Scoring should be fairly low on the front-nine - there are not so many bunkers and there are two back-to-back reachable par-fives. The bunkers start to spread like a rash on the back nine and the par-fours gradually get longer and longer. It seems unlikely that we will have the benign conditions of 1996, so this will really be a finish to separate the champion from the also-rans.
This will be no stroll for Tiger. He excels at course management, shot selection and imagination, but even before his dip in form since the US Open he has not played anywhere as well as last year consistently. For the first since 1998 he is no longer 1st-ranked in total driving (19th), ball striking (5th) or the All-Around ranking (5th). Most importantly, he is not as good at holing out as last year and that is also being reflected in his sand save percentages. He has been given a huge boost with an early tee-time. If he can post a decent score, then the psychological impact over the other contenders will his greatest asset. He failed to achieve that at the US Open. Definitely not backable at the available odds.
That said, I do believe this will be an event dominated by PGA Tour players. I had liked the prospects of Bjorn and Clarke and they should be amongst the highest placed players from the European Tour, but I can't see them winning this week, nor can I see many other European Tour players lasting the full four days. They will feature, but not when it matters IMO. Two-thirds of the top-20 ranked players in the 'course form' table are based on the PGA Tour. This week's three selections are therefore from this Tour: Vijay Singh, Davis Love and Jesper Parnevik.
Five top-20 finishes in the last seven years shows that Vijay is not unduly hampered by the conditions typically experienced at the British Open. He was also 3rd going into the final round in 1996 only to fall back on the Sunday to 11th. His form this season has been consistently good - no worse than 18th in his last 16 starts - though he has continued to fail to win in the US. His last victory on American soil was at the 2000 Masters. Yet he did win back-to-back events on the European Tour earlier this season and that winless tag will not be a millstone this week. Twice a major champion, he has the ability to seize the opportunity should it arise on Sunday and at worst, looks a decent shot for a top-6 finish.
I have vowed in the past never to back DL3 again and his run of 7th, missed cut, 2nd since returning to competitive golf while still injured is enough reason to stay clear again. However, his record in this event is excellent with no worse than 11th in each of the last four years on a variety of very different courses. his form has been excellent and on any other week against Hoch he would have won the Western Open. Like Vijay, he does not fit the bill of the "accurate off the tee" player that I think will do well this week - some players can just raise their games for majors and contend in all the different formats. He is also a major champion and his experience could be important.
The final pick, Jesper Parnevik, is not a major champion, but he is the consummate links player. An ability to shape the ball both ways, keep it low under the wind and a great imagination around the greens make him a British Open specialist. He should have won in 1994 at Turnberry and again in 1997 at Troon. To those runners-up spots can be added two other top-10 finishes in the last three years - it was only on the wide-open spaces of St. Andrews that he underperformed. He has had a light schedule coming into this event, but showed enough form last week at Loch Lomond to impress and 50/1 is much higher than anywhere else.
Outright plays:
Vijay Singh to win 20/1 e.w. @
Bet247 [6 places]
Davis Love to win 28/1 e.w. @
Bet247 [6 places]
Jesper Parnevik to win 50/1 e.w. @
Olympic
