The Open Championships: Five things to ponder on the eve of the Open
Dave Tindall ponders five major talking points ahead of The Open Championship, which begins on Thursday morning at Carnoustie.
By Dave Tindall
Doubting Thomas?
It’s always worth taking time to give it some extra thought when a star name is further down the betting than we see them in the Regular Week Masters at Bogstandard Hills.
I think back to Rory McIlroy winning at Hoylake at 18/1, or landing the 2012 USPGA at Kiawah Island when 20/1 or his US Open romp in 2011 as a 22/1 shot. All those prices reflected uncertainty.
In 2011, McIlroy’s head was supposed to be too muddled after his Masters collapse a couple of months earlier. Was Kiawah Island too windy? And surely he looked iffy betting material at Hoylake given his slightly disparaging comments at past Opens when he complained about having to adjust his game for one week of the year.
In the end, class outweighed all those creeping doubts, and it could be the same with Justin Thomas at Carnoustie this week. He’s as big as 28/1 because there’s a perception that links golf isn’t his bag. There are hints, though. He was in the top six after round one in both his Open starts but suffered with the draw at Troon and from a few crazy holes at Birkdale.
The word 'yet' needs to be added when we say he hasn't done anything in an Open. That 28/1 could look very big.
Swedish concern after Noren noir
As usual, most of the days leading up to the Open Championship are spent looking for clues about players you’ve backed or are thinking about adding to your portfolio.
If you’ve watched a lot of The Bridge and want to get into Scandinavian detective mode, the news coming out of the Swedish camp is particularly concerning.
Somewhat appropriately in that superb BBC1 series, the lead homicide detective in Malmo is a character called Saga Noren and if we take an extreme view of a clue from the press tent this week the chances of 28/1 shot Alex Noren are already dead and buried.
Golf writer Matt Cooper has been on the case this week and tweeted: "Swedish update via their press. Stenson expecting to start, Noren not hitting it well, Bjork added distance this year & confident, don't forget Kinhult won Lytham Trophy by eight."
Plenty to get stuck into there but should the Noren backers - of whom I am one - be worried? Experience says both ‘yes’ and ‘no’.
It’s not really what you want to hear but if I had £10 for every time a winner has said he wasn’t hitting it great in practise, I’d have... probably a lot more than £100.
Unless, of course, they meant to say "was hitting it well" rather than "wasn’t hitting it well", an easy mistake to make as we found out in another Scandinavian city, Helsinki, earlier this week.
Tiger’s time to shine?
Here’s a fact: Tiger Woods hasn’t had a top 10 in a major for five years. That was in the 2013 Open at Muirfield when he finished five back from Phil Mickelson. Woods was actually tied second and three in front of Mickelson going into the final round that year but shot a 74 to Lefty’s 66.
A shame they couldn’t have had a $10m head-to-head on the Monday afterwards but, hey, far better to have it now when both are worse players.
If that sounds a little harsh, it’s still not impossible that the 2018 Woods can win another Claret Jug and add to those he lifted at St Andrews in 2000 and 2005 and Hoylake in 2006.
In the build-up, Tiger has noted that the fast-running, baked fairways at Carnoustie this week remind him of St Andrews (2000) and Hoylake so, given that he won both those Opens, they’re conditions under which he can thrive.
Woods perhaps also tipped us the wink that we shouldn’t hold our breaths about a fifth Green Jacket. "You get to places like Augusta National where it’s just a big ballpark and the course outgrows you," he said. "You don’t have to be long on a links golf course. Look what Tom Watson did at Turnberry in 2009 at the age of 59."
Tiger can still give it a biff (28th Driving Distance) but you get the impression he’d now prefer to rely more on guile and cunning and links golf is always the best stage for that. Major number 15? It's possible.
This Is England
Actually, it’s Scotland and, of course, Paul Lawrie produced that memorable win from 10 shots back on the final day in the brutal 1999 Open at Carnoustie. It means we’ve had a more recent Scottish winner of The Open than an English one.
It’s hard to believe that when an emotional Nick Faldo summoned all his mental strength to win by a shot at Muirfield in 1992 we wouldn’t have seen an English winner of the trophy since.
What’s that... 26 years of hurt? Let’s write a song about it. Get Sir Nick and Tony Jacklin (the previous English winner at Lytham in 1969) to record a duet. Tony actually released an album of pop standards in 1971 (check out his cover of Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now. Gorgeous). Wow, this is really coming together.
If you’re still in World Cup mode and want to support our lads, it’s 9/2 that we get an English winner this week. Justin Rose, Tommy Fleetwood, Paul Casey and Tyrrell Hatton are all in the top 15 in the betting and the list of candidates goes on.
Ian Poulter, Matt Fitzpatrick, Chris Wood, Andy Sullivan, Danny Willett. Or how about Lee Westwood at 70/1? This is the major for the elder gentlemen (four of the last seven winners were in their forties) and all of Westwood’s good Open finishes have come in Scotland.
Like a Brandon Stone
"When you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose," sang Bob Dylan in his 1965 classic, Like A Rolling Stone.
Okay, Brandon Stone wasn’t exactly short of a few quid going into last week’s Scottish Open but after admitting that he was in the "worst spot I’ll ever be" after a missed cut in the Open de France two weeks earlier, the South African certainly played like he had nothing to lose in the final round.
"It's not the first time that someone who's been nowhere in the season has won, and it's not going to be the last time," said Stone, attempting a Dylan lyric of his own.
So what do we do with that information? Look for the next starlet (Stone had won twice previously before a serious dip), who might be ready to hit the heights again? It’s not quite in the same mould but there’s a young Belgian overdue a breakout performance again.
Thomas Pieters has done some amazing things over the last couple of seasons – back-to-back wins on the European Tour in 2015, another victory and the little matter of being the Ryder Cup’s top points scorer at Hazeltine in 2016 and a top four finish on his Masters debut in 2017.
He also cracked the top four in the WGC-Bridgestone Initational last August but since then? Not a lot. He’s managed just two top 10s in the last 11 months but, notably, one of those was in last week’s Scottish Open at Gullane.
After a frustrating lull, the times are a changin’ for Pieters. He’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls, get on at 80s before his price falls.
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