Off the Wires: British Open

by Mulligan Stu on Jul 16, 2008 5:00 PM EDT

Roaming around the news wires ...

Defending champion Padraig Harrington is nursing a sore right wrist that curtailed his practice sessions. And Paddy can't guarantee that he'll be able to tee it up on Thursday.

What's Phil Mickelson's gameplan for Royal Birkdale? He's been strategizing with Dave Pelz:

So what's the lowdown on the crazy Mickelson gameplan this week? First there was the two-driver strategy at the 2006 Masters, which he won. Then there was the no-driver strategy for the first two rounds of this year's U.S. Open, which some other dude won with a one-leg strategy. In between, Mickelson deployed the five-wedges strategy at Colonial, which he won.
"Phil has 19 clubs," said his short game coach, Dave Pelz, "and he'll decide what to put in and what to take out depending on the weather on Thursday. But he'll probably go with four wedges."
If it's windy, Mickelson said he would carry a 2-iron to keep the ball low. If it's calm, the hybrid comes off the bench. And, yes, there will be a driver in the bag, but just one.

Kenny Perry chose to bypass the British Open to play in Milwaukee. Heath Slocum chose to bypass Milwaukee for the hope of playing in the British Open. Slocum is the first alternate, and he's in Southport hoping to get in the field.

John Daly says he's playing against doctor's orders and plans on hitting only three-quarter shots during the tournament.

Royal Birkdale is an anomoly among courses in the British Open rota: It has flat fairways. We won't see as many crazy bounces this week as we normally do during the Open. How'd Royal Birkdale - a course set in a rolling dunescape - wind up with flat fairways?

But it's not the flat fairways that are the key to Royal Birkdale - it's the wind. And the wind was howling on Wednesday, giving players practicing a good taste of what might be waiting during the tournament.

Howling wind could make hitting those flat fairways problematic. Justin Rose says the ability to find those fairways off the tee might determine the champ. "It's almost as good a driving test as the U.S. Open would be," he said today.

One of the announcements at Southport on Wednesday was the appointment of Ty Votaw to lead a multi-tour, multi-organization push for the addition of golf to the Olympics in time for the 2016 Games. Golf will wind up in the Olympics, but I doubt many of the top players will bother showing up.

Is Tiger Woods' absence from the British Open good or bad for golf? Mark Cannizzaro of the New York Post votes "bad"; former European Tour player turned broadcaster Ronan Rafferty votes "good" in this piece from London's Guardian.

Greg Norman is playing the British Open, his first flatbelly major in three years, and new wife Chris Evert will be in his gallery. And he's blissfully happy after three weeks with the new old lady.

"Jovial Filipino" Angelo Que is one of the first-timers in the field. He won his national open on the Asian Tour earlier this year, but not many people outside of the Philippines know much about him. This is his chance to change that.

Brainiac Bob Rotella talks British Open. And he also explains how he got into the golf business in the first place:

Rotella was a sports psychologist at the University of Virginia, specialising in basketball and lacrosse, when Golf Digest asked him in 1976 to make a presentation. "Sam Snead was on their editorial board and that was the starting point of my unbelievable career in golf. Snead was incredible, even in his 60s, and after hearing me talk he said, 'Man, if I had this guy when I was young I'd have won so many more majors.' If Sam Snead had said I was talking hogwash no one would've listened to me. But because Sam opened up people just followed him."

Blame it on the Slammer.

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good stuff !

I never knew that about Rotella. Still get tired of psychobabble – but he sure does have a following.

Birkdale has flat fairways ? It’s built more in the dunes than any of the Rota courses. Players have been talking about avoiding the wild bounces.

Mark Cannizzaro (personal railing here) can take a flying leap. He should be writing for some British tabloid instead of at a major newspaper. His other article this week was an “open letter to Kenny Perry” – completely ignorant.

"this ball will fit in that fairway"

by courtgolf on Jul 16, 2008 7:02 PM EDT reply actions

Mickel-pelz

I would LOVE to be around Mickelson when a local gets a look in Phil’s bag and gets a look at 4 wedges. Brits generally think that a lob wedge is a useless club on their links courses.

If Phil has 4 wedges, imagine what they’ll say about his 64 degree wedge. :-)

"this ball will fit in that fairway"

by courtgolf on Jul 16, 2008 7:14 PM EDT up reply actions

The top players will play the Olympics

When I posted a long, and rambling, comment here a few months ago about Olympic golf the response was “Top players won’t play just like tennis”. Well tennis has been in the Olympics since 1992 (the year of Steffi Graf’s Golden Slam). Well it’s 4 Olympiads later and there is this from the Evil 4 letter.

“LONDON—Roger Federer and 16 of the other top 20 men and Ana Ivanovic and 17 other top 20 women have entered the tennis tournament at next month’s Beijing Olympics.”

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/news/story?id=3471168

I’m telling you, if you let the top golfers play for their country under the Olympic rings once every 4 years they will come. Look how much competition there is for spots on the Ryder Cup teams.

by MOlson on Jul 16, 2008 11:25 PM EDT reply actions

Slocum got in

Since he’s now a fellow Atlantan, I’m happy to say that Heath Slocum got into The Open. Unfortunately, he’s dropped a couple of shots since I left home and is +3 through 13 – but on a day like this, that ain’t half bad since only two guys are under par at the moment (Robert Karlsson – through 2 and Angel Cabrera – through 5).

Tough day !

Did anybody see the Tom Watson interview this morning ? His eyes are looking like ET these days with the coloring.

"this ball will fit in that fairway"

by courtgolf on Jul 17, 2008 8:50 AM EDT reply actions