Putt your money on Garcia missing out on glory again
Royal Birkdale hosts the Open for the ninth time next week, without Tiger Woods, but with plenty of others from the 1998 Championship (the last time the tournament was held at the course).
All those returning to Birkdale will find it 150 yards longer than a decade ago at 7,173 yards.
However, the extra yardage is inconsequential compared to the newly introduced mounds, tightened bunkering and altered playing lines. The changes, which incidentally affect 16 of the 18 holes, have been made to reward strategic play and accurate shot making, according to the official Open website.
Finding the winner of golf’s greatest prize is harder than ever without being able to take the World No.1 as one of our picks. Tiger’s absence means that for the first time in years, the favourite for the event will start nearer 10/1 than 10/11!
Sergio Garcia, who is bidding to cap an unbelievable summer for the Spanish, is the obvious choice and is already as short as 8/1 with some firms. However, that’s now a silly price in such a massive field and I’ll be laying him for a place on Betdaq next week. If he gets off to a good start on Thursday, expect his price to collapse even further.
The 28 year-old Spaniard still has to flush the memories of last year from his mind, when he squandered the opportunity to be crowned champion
in that memorable play-off with Padraig Harrington. Yet, even though his Open record is fantastic (six top 10 finishes in the last seven years) and he’s already won the Players’ Championship this year, he still must be taken on at that price. Jack Nicklaus in 1978 was the last player to win the Open and the Players in the same year. Since Ray Floyd came third at Sandwich in 1981, no player has finished in the top three in the Open on the back of winning at Sawgrass.
Interestingly, only one Open winner since 1969 (Ballesteros back in 1984) missed the cut in the US Masters that same year. Garcia fans will be slightly nervous that he failed to make the weekend at Augusta this year along with other big names such as Ernie Els and Luke Donald.
When selecting your picks next week, there are a number of very strong statistics to consider. For example, 34 of the last 37 winners had registered a top-two finish in a main tour event that year and 30 had won such an event. Also, the last 26 winners who had played more than three Opens prior to victory, had all recorded a top-12 finish in the tournament and all bar three had recorded a top 15 in the previous three years.
One player who seems to tick all the right boxes is Open Championship regular Jim Furyk, who makes plenty of appeal at around the 25/1 mark. Furyk has a brilliant Major record and knows what it takes to win having walked away with the US Open back in 2003. He finished 12th last year, fourth the year before and in total has four top 10 Open finishes.
The 38-year-old has that brilliant accuracy required from the tee, the ability to hit greens in regulation and is playing himself back into form (third last week in the AT & T National). He was also fourth in this event at Birkdale behind Mark O’Meara back in 1998 and I expect him to show up well again.