Some of the glamor and glitz may have gone out of next week’s British Open at Royal Birkdale now that Tiger Woods has pulled out, but a win in golf’s oldest and most prestigious tournament would still be something special, leading players insist.
Lee Westwood, who missed a putt to join Woods and Rocco Mediate in a play-off for the US Open last month, for one believes that the world No.1’s absence from this year’s tournament will not even merit a footnote in history.
“When it goes down in the history books,” the Englishman said, “there won’t be a note beside it to say that Tiger didn’t participate.”
Westwood’s comments were echoed by Justin Rose, who announced his arrival onto the world stage as a 17-year-old amateur when he finished fourth the last time the Open was played over the Southport links 10 years ago.
“You could pretty much have guaranteed that at some stage the name of Woods would have been on the leaderboard and probably late on Sunday,” the European No.1 said.
“But really it’s one less player to beat and that is the simple mathematics of it,” he said.
“We all want to beat the best player in the world and to win your first major means it would be all the sweeter to beat him down the stretch. But you do have to look at it as an opportunity and winning a first major would be an incredible moment no matter who you beat,” he said.
Birkdale will be the first major tournament to tee off without the intimidating presence of Woods since the 1996 USPGA when Mark Brooks was the winner at Valhalla, where the Ryder Cup will be contested in September.
Since then, 46 majors have come and gone and Woods has won 14 of them to stand just four shy of the record held by Jack Nicklaus.
But he was only briefly in the hunt at Carnoustie last year when Padraig Harrington pulled off an emotional four-hole playoff win for Ireland after Sergio Garcia had come within an inch of breaking his duck in the majors.
The Dubliner and the Spaniard are once again expected to be in the hunt.
Garcia is the current bookies tournament favorite at 9/1, followed by Ernie Els at 14/1 and Harrington at 16/1, the same as Westwood and Phil Mickelson.
Garcia was in fine form in carding a final round of 66 to finish second behind Ross Fisher in the European Open last week and has been particularly encouraged by his putting which has often been his Achilles heel.
“I’m looking forward to the Open,” he said before flying home.
“There are things I need to keep improving, but there are good positive things and overall I’m very happy.
“I don’t expect to putt like this every single round. I would love to — it would be a very easy game — but the only thing you can do is believe in what you do,” he said.
If Garcia does manage to win, he would be the first European golfer ever to lift The Open at Birkdale with two Australians (Peter Thomson won twice) and five Americans having done so in the eight times it has been played there since 1954.
As usual players have chosen different ways to prepare for The Open challenge with the likes of Mickelson, Els, Westwood and Montgomerie teeing off in the Scottish Open at Loch Lomond from yesterday.
Paul Casey on the other hand has decided to skip the three lead-in tournaments and instead put in several rounds of practice at Southport with his American coach Peter Kostis.
“I’ve not played Birkdale before, although I was here watching in 1998,” the Englishman said.
Defending champion Harrington has decided to stick to his strategy of last year by heading home to play in the low-level Irish PGA championship which he won.
“Playing competitive championship golf always sharpens your game and The European Club is a super links course. It was great preparation for Carnoustie last year,” the Irishman said.
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