Woods faces stiff international opposition
at Troon
By RON SIRAK AP Golf Writer
TROON, Scotland (AP) - The Royal Troon Golf Course has been
good to Americans, producing winners from the west side of the
Atlantic the last four times the British Open was played there.
While that sounds good for Tiger Woods and defending champion
Tom Lehman, the 126th Open beginning Thursday also comes at a
time when many of the top players in the world are at peak form.
Contenders are everywhere and from every corner of the globe.
Three-time British Open winner Nick Faldo of England, the two-time
winner from Australia, Greg Norman, and Colin Montgomerie, a hot
golfer with the home-course advantage, all come in playing well.
No one has been hotter than U.S. Open champion Ernie Els of
South Africa. And Nick Price of Zimbabwe, Bernhard Langer of Germany
and Spaniard Jose Maria Olazabal all seem to have their games
back.
Throw in Jesper Parnevik of Sweden, New Zealander Frank Nobilo
and Costantino Rocca of Italy and the chances of an American winning
the world's oldest golf tournament for the third consecutive year
seem remote.
Yet Woods, who has won six times on the PGA Tour in only 21
tournaments as a professional - including a stunning 12-stroke
victory at the Masters - is at the top of many lists.
"You've got to look at both Tiger and Ernie," Nobilo
said. "The one thing that the British Open has always seemed
to bring forward is the best player that year seems to have won
it on so many occasions."
Besides playing well, Woods and Els also have the length and
touch needed to win at Troon, stretched along the west coast of
Scotland on the Irish Sea.
"The British Open does suit a stronger hitter of the ball,"
Nobilo said, speaking about Woods. "So I think with his style
of play, the British Open will suit him right down to a tee, as
it will Ernie. Probably Greg Norman. Not so much Faldo. Maybe
Tom Lehman and someone like Fred Couples or Davis Love."
One long-hitter and former Open champion who will not contend
is John Daly. Still struggling with the aftermath of a relapse
into alcoholism, Daly officially withdrew a week before the tournament.
Woods, who has said his 66 in the second round of the British
Open at Royal Lytham last year convinced him he was good enough
to turn pro, has proven he can handle the hard, fast links where
shots can't be fired at the flags but must be delicately encouraged
to bound near the hole.
"I thoroughly enjoy links golf," Woods said last
week while winning the Western Open, his last tune-up before the
Open. "I think that's the ultimate golf just because you
get to use your imagination for once."
The first three holes at Royal Troon are par-4 holes measuring
less than 400 yards. With the prevailing wind at his back, Woods
can drive the holes. But British courses are fraught with dangers
not measured in yards.
"Pot bunkers are deep," Woods said about the steep-faced
hazards that could keep the driver in his bag. "More importantly,
it's where they're placed.
"If they're placed right where my ball is going to land,
obviously, that's not very good for me to try and go for it,"
said Woods, who will see the course for the first time on Tuesday.
Gauging the placement of the pot bunkers is something Woods
can control. The weather is something he will have to endure.
"If we have four days of very strong wind, the scores
are going to be high," Price said.
"As I understand, the rough is like four or five inches
toward the edge of the fairway because they put that new double
sprinkler system in," Price said. "It's a real links
golf course, the front nine going out with the wind and the back
nine coming back into it."
The back side is also the longer of the two nines with all
six par-4s measuring over 430 yards and a 223-yard par-3 at No.
17 that plays into the wind.
"The secret to playing well on that course is to post
a score going out and hold it together coming back," said
Price, who played the last six holes of the 1982 Open at Troon
four over par and finished one stroke behind winner Tom Watson.
"That's what everybody who has played well there in the
past has done," Price said. "That back nine sorts the
men out from the boys."
Mark Calcavecchia won at Troon in 1989, defeating Norman and
Wayne Grady in the first playoff using the four-hole format.
Norman started the final round with six consecutive birdies
and shot a course-record 64. But he lost his chance to win when
he drove into a pot bunker more than 300 yards out on No. 18 -
the final playoff hole - hit into another bunker then picked up
after hitting a ball out of bounds.
Watson won at Troon in 1982 when the 25-year-old Price stumbled.
Tom Weiskopf won there in 1973 and Arnold Palmer started the American
domination of Troon with a victory in 1962.
South African Bobby Locke won at Troon in 1950 and Briton Arthur
Havers won the first Open played there in 1923.
Montgomerie stands with Els as the main obstacles to a second
major championship for Woods. The 34-year-old Scotsman will try
to win his first major championship at the course where his father,
James, is the secretary. And he is coming off his best effort
of the year - a closing 62 to win the Irish Open.
"I've been playing well since early May," said Montgomerie,
who had another near-miss at the U.S. Open, where he finished
second. "I'm obviously very confident in what I am doing.
Everything is just right going into a very important part of the
year."
Montgomerie joined Els, Norman, Faldo, Lehman and Olazabal
in a final competition before the British Open at the Gulfstream
World Invitational at Loch Lomond north of Glasgow.
"He has great control of his game right now," Faldo
said about Montgomerie. "He was on cruise control."
British Opens, however, are not won on cruise control. They
are struggles against self, nature and - this year it seems -
some of the best golfers in the world playing their best golf.
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