Open Championship Week
The Open Championship (a.k.a. British Open) begins this week on Thursday at Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Liverpool, England. Yup, it’s the same Liverpool where the Beatles began their career. In fact, the last time the Open Championship was played in Liverpool was 1967, the same year Sgt. Peppers was released. Suffice to say that the golf course will be a complete unknown to almost all of the professionals, save for Phil Mickelson, who’s been there twice in the last month.
Tiger Woods is the defending champion and will be playing for only the third time since his father’s death. Phil Mickelson will of course be attempting to exorcise his demons from last month’s collapse at the U.S. Open, but lefty has never played the Open rotunda very well since his career started.
So who are the favorites this year? It’s more difficult than usual since none of the world’s top 5 are playing their best golf coming into the Open. Geoff Ogilvy has to be one of the favorites as he’s a very straight driver of the ball and has a great putting touch. Darren Clarke is playing very well as of late (in spite of not closing the deal yesterday on the Euro tour).