“I’m back now playing the best golf I’ve ever played”, Southgate said, with a smile.
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But they all know how tricky it is to maintain such a position on a back nine, described by South Africa’s three-time Open champion Gary Player as “the most hard in the world, when the wind is blowing”. That is insanely good. The two-time major champion reached the Tour Championship last fall, led the triumphant USA team at the Presidents Cup and has five top-10 finishes in 2016. The clear world No. 1 until Johnson started destroying everything in sight. And he can not crack the top three on this list! Casey is now ranked the 29th best golfer in the world and he has extra incentive to do well this week (not that he needs it), in that it’ll show the European Tour what they’ll be missing at the Ryder Cup.
Always a fan favorite, the native of Northern Ireland has come close to winning the British Open a couple of times. Knost was the last man into the field when Brooks Koepka pulled out on Sunday evening and will be thanking his lucky stars he got the call; the big man is in excellent form with three top-five finishes in his last five events, and this week’s course looks a ideal fit for one of the most accurate players on the PGA Tour.
Two years ago, McIlroy followed up his victory at Royal Liverpool by winning again in the PGA Championship. This is completely reasonable, but it doesn’t mean one of these four world superstars will walk away with the Claret Jug on Sunday. There is really not much in between there. The unfortunate part this year is that he is not exactly streaking coming in. He has the resume, too. He is however one of the best wind players in the world and owns two Top-10 finishes at The Open in six tries.
Last year Zach Johnson proved these majors are not the sole domain of the big hitters at the very top of the rankings with his victory on the Old Course. His only other top 10 came when he was low amateur in 1998.
Adam Scott (20-1): Scott’s recent British Open performance has included a disheartening near miss in 2012 and four straight Top-10 finishes.
Danny Willett comes to Royal Troon as both a major championship victor and as a contender for last year’s British Open championship, and that is not a coincidence. We’ve won two out of the last three years.
Before leaving his home on Georgia’s St. Simons Island, Johnson, his wife Kim and their three young children all posed with the claret jug one last time, each of them showing off their best pouty faces on Twitter. He also has not missed a cut since 2009. It would be pretty cool to see him rebound from his Oakmont disappointment with a Claret Jug.
The Doc stays with Pádraig for each Open, and next week, they will both appear at Roganstown Golf & Country Club in North Dublin for a presentation on “Tour Life”.
Every Open staged at the challenging Ayrshire links since 1962 has been won by an American player and current form suggests that run will be extended after this week’s 145th running of the Championship. He seems like a big game hunter along with Leishman and the likes of Angel Cabrera. Dark, gray clouds lingered overhead, doling out an occasional smattering of showers just to make things a bit more unpleasant. This is more gut than anything.
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In conjunction with its inaugural year as the exclusive US television rights holder of The Open (July 14-17), NBC Sports Group worked in collaboration with Whistle Sports, a digital sports media company with a network of more than 400 sports social influencers creating content across social, digital and TV platforms.
