The Open Championship is one weekend where no statistics, no rankings and no market value will determine who walks off the winner. The winner will have to put together 4 rounds of terrific, mindless and natural golf in order to raise the trophy. Tiger Woods is looking to defend his title and capture his 13th major and 3rd Claret Jug.
At Carnoustie, winds can blow in both directions and rain can fall in the morning and clouds can cease for afternoon rounds. The weather changes almost as much as the leaderboard. In one interview from BunkerShot.com, Tiger Woods said "So far I've played three practice rounds. I've played in three different winds, which was good." Woods would say that he considers the British Open his favorite major, "I love playing over here because it allows you to be creative... Over here you can create shots. You can use the ground as an ally. We play so much in the States where everything is up in the air."
It's not just the winds, the bunkers at Carnoustie are so deep that you almost need a ladder to get in and out. Woods says that the common misconception that players have about the side bunkers is that they can advance the ball forward. The wiser choice when finding your ball deep against the bunkers walls is to actually play the ball backwards and treat the bunkers as a hazard, as if when you enter you are automatically giving up a stroke. Trying to pound the ball or fly it over the lip can result in the ball falling back at the golfers feet. It will be interesting to see how the market will react when a player falls victim to one of the deep sand wells and drops 2 strokes just getting out.
The best choices for this weekend are 3/5 of Greg Vara's top 5 players to consider. Tiger Woods, Jim Furyk and Justin Rose are all quality picks for the upcoming British Open Challenge. Woods finished 7th at Carnoustie in 1999 and Vara says, "Anytime the words 'difficult course' are uttered, Woods must go to the top of your list." Woods is priced at $335, which is a little high, but people aren't buying because they're thinking about his Earnings Day price, people are buying because of popularity. I'm not sure if I'll have TW in my challenge portfolio when the first round starts, it might be a choice move to start the challenge with Woods shorted - this choice could make or break the winning portfolio.
Finding the fairway can be very helpful, spraying your drive can hurt your chances of making routine approaches. The roughs are long, and a players swing often hits grass on both the backswing and follow through. Missing the fairway on just one hole can kill your entire round, which is maybe way Greg Vara is picking Furyk and avoiding Phil Mickelson and Retief Goosen.
Jim Furyk is ranked 3rd in the world and 7th in the FedEx Cup standings. Jim is on top of his game this season, he's made the cut in 13/16 events. What helps Furyk this weekend is that he ranks 2nd in Driving Accuracy, he's hitting the fairway with 74.7% of his drives. Other names at the top of the Driving Accuracy list are Zach Johnson and Fred Funk. Players who like to miss the fairway from the tee are John Daly (42.4%), Charles Howell (50.3%) and Retief Goosen (52.6).
Keep in mind that Tiger hasn't been perfect off the tee, he is ranked 162nd only hitting 56.4% of the fairways, but regardless Tiger has played in 10 events and is averaging a top 10 finish (9.6). Justin Rose has played in 10 events and has averaged a top 30 finish (29.8) and half of the events he's been in the top 10. Rose finished T5 at The Masters and T10 at the US Open. I have been trying to pick a Furyk victory for a few weeks now, I think he's due. After finishing 4th last year in this event, Furyk could finally rise to the top and capture his 2nd major and first British Championship.
Woods finished his interview responding to the question about trying to explain what happened in 1999 by saying, "Well, I've never heard anyone say Carnoustie is easy..."
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