Johnson the player to beat
World number one starts the Open as the top dog at Carnoustie
WORLD number one Dustin Johnson will be the man to beat at this season’s third Major championship, the 147th British Open that gets underway at Carnoustie Golf Links in Angus, Scotland on Thursday.
Johnson, who dominated the first two days of the US Open last month only to see his putter let him down over the weekend, will be hoping nothing of the sort happens at Carnoustie. The 34-year-old finished third then and also won the FedEx St Jude Classic a week earlier. He will be keen on that kind of form as he endeavours to win a second Major title – the first coming at the 2016 US Open at Oakmont Country Club.
There are many on Tour and beyond who believe Johnson is way better than the sole Major title he has in his trophy cabinet. He has come really close to a second Major on several occasions now, but somehow seems to let them slip away – last month’s US Open being a good example.
But even if he doesn’t win, Johnson certainly brings heaps of entertainment to the event. He walks the course with a laid-back sort of style, almost unassuming, yet when he fires it off the tee-box he is one of the longest hitters in the modern game.
He is definitely one to watch at Carnoustie.
Rory McIlroy, eighth in the world rankings, gets the nod as the second favourite this week despite his position in the standings. He did finish tied for sixth at the CVS Health Charity Classic on the US PGA Tour three weeks ago and is a past championh i h here. The h four-time f i Major winner clinched the 2014 Open at Royal Liverpool and will fancy his chances at Carnoustie, never mind the support he is likely to receive from the galleries that will throng the fairways and greens of the links course where the likes of Ben Hogan, Gary Player and Tom Watson have won the Claret Jug.
McIlroy has started more than just a few Majors as a leading candidate, yet he has not gone on to win one since 2014 when he captured both the Open and the PGA Championship.
His putting appears to hold him back sometimes and one gets the f feeling li thath if i it clicks li k this hi week, kh he should be right in there with a shout for the title.
He said after his hometown Irish Open last weekend that he felt better on the greens and that he worked out a thing or two to get his putting improved. That is good news for his many fans that cannot wait for him to pick up a fifth major crown.
Jordan Spieth and Justin Rose are also expected to be in the thick of things next Sunday afternoon. Both are Major winners, Spieth the defending champion and Rose the 2013 US Open winner, and also among the most popular players in the global
game.
The Texan has slipped a little down the world rankings to sixth, but will not be too concerned about that and rather concentrate on trying to add to the three Majors he already has to his credit. When he tees it up at the US PGA Championship next month he will be bidding for a career Grand Slam, having also won the Masters and US Open in 2015.
Thirty-seven year-old Rose is at a career high third in the world rankings and also comes into the tournament with a bit of form in recentr months.
At the US Open last month the EnglishmanE finished tied for 10th, wasw 6th at the Memorial TournamentT a fortnight before that and a won the Forth Worth Invitational I title at the end of May. And A despite playing the US PGA Tour T full-time for a few years, Rose would w obviously like to win the Open O Championship more than any a other, given where his roots come c from.
Rickie Fowler, who appears to haveh the game to win a Major but isi yet to do so, is another player whow will get good support and hopeh that this week is his week.
Playing in the Scottish Open that endse today, a tournament he uses as a a warm-up for the Open and which w he won in 2016, Fowler does enjoy e playing in Europe and is widely w seen as one of the global faces f of golf.
He has two top-five finishes in the t Open Championship. He was tied t for 5th in 2011 and runner-up in i 2014, a season in which he had a top-five in all four Majors.
American Justin Thomas, second in the world rankings, and number 10 Tommy Fleetwood are tipped as going into the Open with the same chances that Fowler has.
Thomas is another player whom many an expert thinks has a handful of Majors in him. He certainly has the game to pull it off and has demonstrated that on numerous occasions, including winning twice on the PGA Tour this season.
And at 25 he still has a number of years to achieve just that. The Open this would be a welcome start to that, no doubt.
Fleetwood lit up the last round of the US Open at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club last month when he shot a 63 and finished runner-up, a shot behind Brooks Koepka.
That performance has hyped up the Englishman’s challenge of going out and making the Open his Major breakthrough win.
A cool, calm and calculated operator on the course, Fleetwood is Europe’s top player, having won the 2017 Race to Dubai. And he has growing reputation of being able to shoot really low scores on the last day of a tournament. His 63 at Shinnecock Hills was matched at the Shenzhen International last season.
A final round 67 saw him clinch the 2017 Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship ahead of Johnson and Pablo Larrazabal, while a fourth day 65 had him retain the Abu Dhabi title earlier this year.
Koepka himself will be closely followed, if only because his US Open was his second in a row and gave clear indication that he does have a preference for Major titles.
He only has three PGA titles and two of those are his two US Opens.
Tiger Woods will be chasing a fourth Claret Jug and 15th Major title at Carnoustie. He hasn’t won the Open since 2006 and a Major since 2008, but there many who will be rooting for him and hoping his recent form is a genuine indicator that he still has a win or two in him.
He missed the cut at the US Open but bounced back with a tie for 4th place at the Quicken Loans National tournament on the PGA Tour two weeks ago. Similar form would definitely get tongues wagging again at the Open.
But it is Dustin Johnson who is being tipped as the player to beat at Carnoustie – and why not? He is the best player around at the moment.