Anyone can win the Open, not like closed shop SW19
FROM Wimbledon’s world and a winner’s circle closed to all but the same four names, the sporting focus moves seamlessly to the startling difference found at The Open, where it’s easy to lose count of the players who could be the champion golfer next Sunday.
Yes, the effortlessly graceful Roger Federer deserved all the plaudits that came his way but goodness me, he must be glad he chose the individual summer sport that he did.
Could you imagine a situation where the same quartet of golfers share out the next 15 editions of The Open, as has just happened at SW19? It doesn’t matter how gilded they are, it simply ain’t gonna happen.
Actually, to be fair it did nearly happen once. In the first 15 Opens played from 1860, the trio of Willie Park Snr, Tom Morris Snr, and Tom Morris Jnr won 12 of them, although the fact there were only eight or so in the field each year rather explains that one.
Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Seve Ballesteros and Tom Watson also won 11 between 1970 and 1984, but a clean sweep of all 15? How on earth can the two pastimes be so far apart? If truth be told, such domination shouldn’t happen in a popular individual sport. During all his years at the top, it’s amazing to think Federer has met only two high-calibre players from America in Andy Roddick and Andre Agassi and two from Australia in Mark Philippoussis and Lleyton Hewitt, and none at all from South Africa. Contrast that to the picture in golf.
Indeed, Tiger Woods’s unwitting gift to Federer for his dotage must be the fact he turned so many impressionable sporting teenagers in his own nation and others away from tennis and into golf. Hence the reason why the queue of talented twentysomethings at Birkdale this week stretches down the corridor and out the door while in tennis you could count them on the fingers of one hand.
In the last 15 years, only three players have won The Open more than once — Ernie Els, Padraig Harrington and Tiger — and you can be sure that trend is going to continue, for it is indisputable that majors these days have never been harder to win.
Whoever decided to name it The Open all those years ago possessed a prophet’s vision.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
‘I DON’T know if I’m packed for The Open yet, my agent is handling that, but I can’t wait to get there. It’s taken a few years for me to earn the right but it will be worth the wait. It’s going to be pretty special to play in it the first time.’
How pleasing that the last spot of all into The Open went to Bryson DeChambeau, the personable young American who looks a lot like the late Payne Stewart (left) and is just as colourful. DeChambeau has been through the mill since turning pro 15 months ago but a dramatic victory in the John Deere Classic on Sunday will hopefully herald his elevation to the big time.
CALLUM SHINKWIN’S qualification for Birkdale following his stirring Scottish Open performance on Sunday took the grand total of Englishmen competing in The Open this week to 28. Needless to say, all 28 are here on merit, and not one was handed a wildcard.
Outsiders are worth a flutter...
IS THERE any sport that remotely compares to golf when it comes to a fun each-way bet?
This week you can get odds from some betting companies on players finishing in the top 10, would you believe.
The fact that the lowest odds of all are 12-1 for world No 1 Dustin Johnson speaks volumes about the fact that there really isn’t a clear favourite, but most of the enjoyment for the casual punter surely comes from scanning further down the list.
How about Jimmy Walker, a reigning major champion and hardly a fluky one at that, and yet you can have him at 35-1 to finish in the top 10. Ryan Fox, son of All Black legend Grant, is in the form of his life and is available at 150-1 (each-way terms are usually a fifth of the odds).
Xander Schauffele, another gifted American, followed a top-five finish at the US Open with his first victory on the PGA Tour at the Greenbrier Classic and he’s 200-1. Englishman Richard Bland, never a winner in 412 European Tour events but more than capable of finishing in the top 10, is 400-1.
My personal favourite is Englishman Matt Southgate at 250-1. Twelfth last year, runner-up at the Irish Open a fortnight ago, loves links golf — and yet he’s 50-1 to finish in the top 10.
He’s going to miss the cut now, isn’t he?