No Tiger, party at Jack's place
May 28th 2008 09:12
As Tiger Woods continues to rehabilitate his wounded knee in preparation for his comeback assault on the US Open in two weeks, the guy whose record he chasing is hosting a key tournament.
Woods would normally have been at Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial Tournament at Muirfield (Scottish name) Village, which is Dublin (Irish name), Ohio (American name).
The “multinational” locale is matched by the tournament’s tendency to throw up international winners, with Korea’s KJ Choi and Sweden’s Carl Petterson the two most recent winners.
Australians also have a great record at a course Jack likes to keep tough. Last year Adam Scott, Geoff Ogilvy, Aaron Baddeley and Rod Pampling were all inside the top 20 and Nick O’Hern has also been prominent.
Trying to pick a winner is damn hard. You could go safe with the in-form Phil Mickelson or the reliable Ernie Els … but I’m here to try to win you some money so I’m prepared to look outside top picks.
One guy I really like is Pampling. He was stunning for all but one hole at Colonial last week, losing by one shot to the ridiculously talented Mickelson. Some people have suggested Pampling choked and yeah, while his swing didn’t quite hold under pressure, he’s been at the hot end of tournaments in the past and not crumbled.
So I’m giving him another chance to prove his recent string of good form is valid.
Another I’m keen on is Sean O’Hair. His record at this tournament is consistently good and after a great run of form that included a win and a tie for 14th at the Masters, O’Hair bottomed out and missed three straight cuts but was back in some kind of form at Colonial, finished 26th.
And I’ve been keen on Kenny Perry for the past two weeks and I’ll stick with him because he’s won at Jack’s Place before.
My top fancy though is a guy called Jeff Quinney. You might not have heard of him as he hasn’t been around that long but he’s got game. He was runner-up to Mickelson on a tough course at Riviera and was just outside the playoff between Sergio Garcia and Paul Goydos at the rich Players Championship and backed up that with a strong seventh last week.
.
In summary: Jeff Quinney, Rod Pampling, Sean O’Hair, Kenny Perry and for one more week I’ll give Pat Perez a chance to shine.
On the European Tour, it would normally be birdie-fest time at the Wales Open, which used to be held at the player-friendly Roman Road course.
But the event is moving to a new course, known as the Twenty Ten Course because it will host the Ryder Cup in 2010.
You can expect the class acts to adapt better to a new course but really, any one of 10 or 12 players could win here including last week’s champ Miguel Angel Jimenez, a former champion here or current British Open champ Padraig Harrington.
Robert Karlsson, another former winner here, has been in stunning form and thoroughly deserves a win.
Among the others I’d consider backing are Nick Dougherty, Simon Dyson, India’s Jyoti Randhawa, Denmark’s Soren Kjeldsen and local favourite Bradley Dredge … the list goes on.
I find this one a really tough one to sort out, but I’ll go: Karlsson, Dougherty, Kjeldsen, Dredge and Randhawa.
Woods would normally have been at Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial Tournament at Muirfield (Scottish name) Village, which is Dublin (Irish name), Ohio (American name).
The “multinational” locale is matched by the tournament’s tendency to throw up international winners, with Korea’s KJ Choi and Sweden’s Carl Petterson the two most recent winners.
Australians also have a great record at a course Jack likes to keep tough. Last year Adam Scott, Geoff Ogilvy, Aaron Baddeley and Rod Pampling were all inside the top 20 and Nick O’Hern has also been prominent.
Trying to pick a winner is damn hard. You could go safe with the in-form Phil Mickelson or the reliable Ernie Els … but I’m here to try to win you some money so I’m prepared to look outside top picks.
One guy I really like is Pampling. He was stunning for all but one hole at Colonial last week, losing by one shot to the ridiculously talented Mickelson. Some people have suggested Pampling choked and yeah, while his swing didn’t quite hold under pressure, he’s been at the hot end of tournaments in the past and not crumbled.
So I’m giving him another chance to prove his recent string of good form is valid.
Another I’m keen on is Sean O’Hair. His record at this tournament is consistently good and after a great run of form that included a win and a tie for 14th at the Masters, O’Hair bottomed out and missed three straight cuts but was back in some kind of form at Colonial, finished 26th.
And I’ve been keen on Kenny Perry for the past two weeks and I’ll stick with him because he’s won at Jack’s Place before.
My top fancy though is a guy called Jeff Quinney. You might not have heard of him as he hasn’t been around that long but he’s got game. He was runner-up to Mickelson on a tough course at Riviera and was just outside the playoff between Sergio Garcia and Paul Goydos at the rich Players Championship and backed up that with a strong seventh last week.
.
In summary: Jeff Quinney, Rod Pampling, Sean O’Hair, Kenny Perry and for one more week I’ll give Pat Perez a chance to shine.
On the European Tour, it would normally be birdie-fest time at the Wales Open, which used to be held at the player-friendly Roman Road course.
But the event is moving to a new course, known as the Twenty Ten Course because it will host the Ryder Cup in 2010.
You can expect the class acts to adapt better to a new course but really, any one of 10 or 12 players could win here including last week’s champ Miguel Angel Jimenez, a former champion here or current British Open champ Padraig Harrington.
Robert Karlsson, another former winner here, has been in stunning form and thoroughly deserves a win.
Among the others I’d consider backing are Nick Dougherty, Simon Dyson, India’s Jyoti Randhawa, Denmark’s Soren Kjeldsen and local favourite Bradley Dredge … the list goes on.
I find this one a really tough one to sort out, but I’ll go: Karlsson, Dougherty, Kjeldsen, Dredge and Randhawa.
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