Golf is Open for debate

Spieth, who finished in a tie for 30th place at Royal Troon past year, is aiming to improve on his best finish (tied for fourth place) at The Open which came in 2015 at St Andrews. Hopefully, we can have another one or two like that. I feel like I’m getting the same practice in, just not at the tournament course.

The notoriously unpredictable weather conditions and the lack of a dominant force in golf just now means picking a victor at this week’s British Open is impossible in the eyes of Jordan Spieth.

“When you have got that many great players, it’s exciting”.

And he is hell-bent on setting a new par margin record when he tees it up against some of the world’s finest in the year’s penultimate big one.

“Last year I was pretty caught in 2015, and this year I’m not”. You can play 10 different shots from the middle of the fairway, and I think that’s so cool.

“I’ve played in the wind since I was a kid basically playing Peninsula district pennant down at Portsea and we actually played Sorrento recently to find some wind as well”, Hall said.

Rose has played just four events since losing out to Garcia at Augusta National, but recovered from missing the cut in the US Open to finish fourth in the Irish Open a fortnight ago.

Rose looks back at that moment and that particular British Open – his first – and sees someone playing with “freedom” and the “innocence” of youth.

“I was kind of not looking for a break, but I kind of needed one, more mentally than anything”. The younger guys are more fearless now.

Skinny: Stenson makes the initial list of players to watch primarily out of respect for what he did at The Open previous year. I’ve been ready to prepare for this and get back into it.

Most surprising to Haas at Royal Liverpool and Royal Lytham was seeing the course without the grandstands and tented villages that are in place for the Open.

I recommend Spieth (+163), Jon Rahm (+205), Justin Rose (+221) and Hideki Matsuyama (+231) each for a Top 10. “You look at how it was at Erin Hills”.

“I love links golf”, said Koepka. “Obviously winning the Masters was unbelievable and it does give you a little bit of extra confidence and I’ve been having a very solid year”.

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Willett then capitalised on Spieth’s collapse in the Masters and was followed into the winner’s circle in 2016 by Dustin Johnson, Henrik Stenson and Jimmy Walker, while Sergio Garcia and Brooks Koepka won the 2017 Masters and US Open respectively. The way my mind kind of works, it benefits me. And it was nice to have a few weeks off. I need to prove nothing in the game of golf.

“It doesn’t faze me at all, you’ve just got to have your head switched on and think about it a little bit, which I’d say is my strength anyway, thinking about things rather than just shooting so I think any wind would be an advantage”.