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My Tips For The British Open

In just 48 hours the British Open at Royal St George’s in Sandwich will be well underway, with American Jerry Kelly hitting the first shot of the historic tournament at around 6.30am on Thursday morning.

All eyes are of course on Rory McIlroy, who has been teamed up veteran Ernie Els and rising American star Rickie Fowler for his first round, to see if he can repeat his success of last month at the US Open.

However in terms of the betting – I’m heading for value elsewhere!

Here are my tips:

Lee Westwood – has been paired with Masters champion Charl Schwartzel and American Steve Stricker in his first round. He looks good value at around 11/1.

Ricky Fowler – As above, he’s a rising star and expected to perform well at this tournament – he’s tremendous each value at around 90/1,

Simon Dyson – I like to back an outsider each way, and this year I’ve got my eye on this guy at 150/1 – he’s got the ability to produce a shock.

George Coetzee – Talking of outsiders, there’s a chance you may not have heard of this 24 year old South African, but he’s on form and has a tournament win to his name this year – I’ve had a cheeky couple of quid on him each-way at 200/1.

Let me know who you’re backing!

 

Tiger Woods ‘Special Announcement’ Will Be Broadcast on Golf Channel Today

A “special announcement” concerning Tiger Woods will be made at 4pm BST on the Golf Channel today, the network said on its Twitter feed without disclosing specifics.

Woods, winner of 14 major golf championships, hasn’t featured in a tournament now for two months. He confirmed last week that he’d skip this week’s British Open, as he recovers from knee and ankle injuries.

Woods hasn’t won a tournament since November 2009, one month after he claimed the last of his 71 U.S. PGA Tour victories. He’s fallen to No. 19 in the Official World Golf Ranking after holding the top spot for a record 281 weeks.

Great Golf Jokes

Away from all the usual news and updates, here are three of my favourite golf jokes! There are plenty out there so let me know if you’ve got a funnier one 🙂

A young man and a priest are playing together. At a short
par-3 the priest asks, “What are you going to use on this
hole, my son?”

The young man says, “An 8-iron, father. How about you?” The
priest says, “I’m going to hit a soft seven and pray.”

The young man hits his 8-iron and puts the ball on the
green. The priest tops his 7-iron and dribbles the ball out
a few yards.

The young man says, “I don’t know about you, father, but in
my church, when we pray, we keep our head down.”

—————————————————

A husband and wife are on the 9th green when suddenly she
collapses from a heart attack!

“Help me dear,” she groans to her husband.

The husband calls 911 on his cell phone, talks for a few
minutes, picks up his putter and lines up his putt. His wife
raises her head off the green and stares at him.

“I’m dying here and you’re putting?”

“Don’t worry dear,” says the husband calmly, “they found a
doctor on the second hole and he’s coming to help you.

“Well, how long will it take for him to get here?” she asks
feebly.

“No time at all,” says her husband. “Everybody’s already
agreed to let him play through.”

—————————————————

Police are called to an apartment and find a woman holding a
bloody 5-iron standing over a lifeless man. The detective
asks, “Ma’am, is that your husband?”

“Yes” says the woman.

“Did you hit him with that golf club?”

“Yes, yes, I did.” The woman begins to sob, drops the club,
and puts her hands on her face.

“How many times did you hit him?”

“I don’t know — five, six, maybe seven times…..just put
me down for a five.”

 

Woods Will Miss British Open – Confirmed

Former world number one Tiger Woods has confirmed he will miss this month’s Open Championship at Sandwich because of his troublesome left leg injury.

The 35-year-old has not played competitively since suffering a recurrence of the injury at thePlayers Championship in mid-May.

“Unfortunately, I’ve been advised that I should not play in the British Open,” Woods said on his official website.

Woods has 14 major titles, four short of the record held by Jack Nicklaus.

Despite slipping to 17th in the current world rankings, Woods insisted: “I think my best years are still ahead of me and I’m very confident and optimistic about the future.

“I am only going to come back when I’m 100% ready. I do not want to risk further injury.

“In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have competed at the Players, but it’s a big event and I wanted to be there to support the tour. I’ve got to learn from what I did there and do it right this time and not come back until I’m ready.”

Read the full article at www.bbc.co.uk

 

McIlroy Named European Tour Golfer Of The Month

Rory McIlroy’s runaway win at the US Open has made him the obvious choice for the European Tour’s Golfer of the Month award.

The 22-year-old from Holywood won his first major by eight shots with a championship record 16 under par total at the Congressional Club in Maryland.

McIlroy became the youngest winner of the title since Bobby Jones in 1923.

He returns to action in The Open at Sandwich on 14 July.

Now number four in the world, McIlroy decided to take three weeks off after his amazing victory.

 

Levet Beats Foster At French Open

Thomas Levet edged Britain’s Mark Foster by just one stroke to win the French Open at Le Golf National.

The Frenchman was three shots behind going into day four but his solid round of 70 put him at seven under in total.

Denmark’s Thorbjorn Olesen should have forced a play-off but somehow missed a four-foot putt on the last hole.

Britain’s James Morrison, the overnight leader, slumped to joint seventh place after a disappointing 78.

“The atmosphere today was great,” said Levet after his win.

“The people were going ‘allez, allez, allez’ and some of them go ‘captain, captain’ (in reference to the Ryder Cup, to be held in France in 2018). I felt like one of the Tour de France riders climbing a mountain.

“You can tell your friends, 2018, France is ready.”

The joint second finish means Foster misses out on a qualifying place for the Open in Sandwich later this month. Olesen took that honour because of his higher world ranking position.

Levet, who lost the 2002 Open after a five-hole play-off at Muirfield, qualified for Sandwich earlier in the month.

 

A Week In Golf: Round-Up

It’s been a week of mixed weather but great to see so many golfers practising and playing, also great to see so many youngsters out there too, hopefully inspired by Rory McIlroy’s US Open win which is still dominating the golf headlines nearly two weeks on!

Here are some links to some decent articles summarising the week’s golfing news, starting with a really good CNN interview by Piers Morgan with Rory himself.

Have a great weekend!

AT+ T National Leaderboard

PGA European Tour – French Open – Le Golf National – Leaderboard

Justin Rose Targets Return To Form

 

Campbell Fails To Qualify For British Open

Former US Open winner Michael Campbell finished just outside the qualifying places for next month’s Open Championship at Sandwich.

The New Zealander was among 288 players competing for 12 qualifying places over four courses in south-east England.

He carded rounds of 68 and 72 for a four-under-par total at Prince’s, one shot outside the qualifying mark.

Another to miss out was former Ryder Cup player Paul Broadhurst, who shot a 67 but then a 75 at Royal Cinque Ports.

Broadhurst, whose 63 at St Andrews in 1990 still stands as the joint best round in a major, missed out by three at the Kent course.

The Open starts on Thursday 14th July 2011 and is promising to be a great tournament.

Tiger Still Hunting Nicklaus

Tiger Woods insists he can still overhaul Jack Nicklaus’ 18-major record despite admitting his participation at the Open Championship is still in doubt.

Woods has not hit a single shot for almost seven weeks due to injury after aggravated knee and Achilles injuries at the Players Championship.

And although Woods will not compete at Royal St George’s unless he is 100 per cent, the 14-time major winner believes there is no reason why he should give up his bid to pass Nicklaus.

“Absolutely not,” said Woods. “He won when he was 46, right?

“I’ve still got some time and on top of that we’re about the same pace I believe in years on Tour and majors won. I feel pretty confident of what my future holds and very excited about it. I’m 35, I’m not 65 – I’ve still got some years ahead of me.”

Please click here to read the full story at Sky Sports.

 

British Golfers Hold Top Three World Ranking Places

British golfers currently hold the top three spots in the world ranking, the first time that’s happened in the 25-year history of the ranking.

Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland rose to third on Monday following his triumph at the U.S. Open last week.  Luke Donald remains top, with fellow Englishman Lee Westwood in second place.

“We’ve fed off each other’s success,” McIlroy told Sky Sports. “We saw Lee get to No. 1 in the world and Luke has been very consistent for the last two years. We’re working hard to beat one another and strive to be better than everyone else.”

Having started the year at No. 10, McIlroy overtook PGA champion Martin Kaymer without playing last weekend because of the German’s poor showing at the BMW International Open.

McIlroy,who won the U.S. Open by a record score, is next scheduled to play at the British Open at Royal St. George’s – starting in just over a fortnight.

McIlroy says he wants to keep playing well while Tiger Woods continues his recovery from an injured left leg.

“It’s a good time for me to win things when he’s not playing his best,” McIlroy said. “The first thing for Tiger is to get healthy and see what happens from there. I don’t know if anyone can answer if he’ll get back to where he was 10 years ago, but a lot of people would like to see him back on the course.”

Woods hasn’t won a title since the Australian Masters in November 2009. The 14-time major champion has plunged to No. 17 in the world rankings, his lowest spot since 1997. He is yet to announce whether he will be healthy enough to play in the British Open.