The Open Championship preview at Royal Birkdale
Tiger Woods’ absence this week for The Open Championship means that the rest of the field has their eyes on the prize
Despite the fact that no European has ever won The Open at Royal Birkdale, Sergio Garcia is this year’s front-runner – available at 10/1 with Boylesports, Betfred and Paddy Power - and he’ll be desperate to exorcise the demons that have haunted him since last year’s final-round capitulation.
Having lead by three shots going into the last day at Carnoustie, Garcia fell apart to win nothing but the unenviable title of ‘the most gifted golfer never to win a major’. His performance this year will hang on the quality of putting, which often seems to let him down on the big stage – if he is dropping putts during the early rounds, he should be in contention come Sunday.
Justin Rose (28/1 with Extrabet) and Lee Westwood (16/1 with Paddy Power) will be flying the flag for Britain. Rose returns to the venue of his impressive entrance onto the world stage, where he announced himself with a fourth place finish as a 17-year-old amateur. Westwood arrives on the back of two good performances in majors this year, and his short game is beginning to look as natural as his driving ability. Both have a good chance and are certainly worthy of an each-way bet.
Phil Mickelson, Adam Scott, Jim Furyk and Ernie Els should all be in contention, but I’m going for an outside bet on Andres Romero at 40/1 with Extrabet. He has played in two Opens so far, and hasn’t finished lower than 8th; his distance off the tee is immense, particularly for a relatively slight man and is ranked 16th on the ‘putts per round’ leaderboard on the PGA Tour statistics website (Garcia is 178th, just to put it in context).
Paddy Power are paying out on the first 6 places at ¼ odds for each way bets just for The Open, so get involved while you can.
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James posted on July 15, 2008:
Paddy Power are actually paying out on the first 7 places now!
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