Padraig Harrington successfully defended his Open title with a four shot victory at Royal Birkdale, beating Ian Poulter into second place.
Four days of truly attritional golf where rain and wind had torn through the field, experience held through as the Irishman held his nerve to take his second major. Harrington started the final day alongside KJ Choi 2 shots back from Greg Norman. The Australian had rolled back the years displaying the full range of shot control despite difficult conditions.
For people used to playing and seeing golf on immaculate parkland courses in balmy sun and no wind the conditions at the 137th Open would have given them the shock of their lives. With no trees lining the course, there was no respite from the winds that howled in from the sea. Not only was the wind regularly blowing at 20 mph but gusted as high as 50 mph making distance control more of an art than a science. Heavy rain over the first 2 days complicated affairs even further.
The final round started finely balanced with 3 shots separating 4 players: Norman, Harrington, Choi and Englishman Simon Wakefield. Prior to the final round, Norman had been in 4 greenside bunkers and got up and down each time. He found one on the first and blasted out to 18 feet. The par put missed and the lead was back to 1. A missed 6 footer on the second from Norman and it was all square with Harrington who looked as steady as a rock paring the first 6 holes. Bogeys at the first for Choi were followed by bogeys from the 4th to the 8th as he fell away from contention. Norman briefly regained the lead around the turn but some bad luck with the putter and a terrible lie in a fairway bunker on the 13th and a miss-club put paid to his efforts despite fighting hard for the rest of the round. It was an amazing effort from one of the giants of the game who showed that age is no bar from competing at the highest level.
It was Ian Poulter who then charged into contention. Confidence is something that Poulter has never been accused of lacking and in these difficult conditions when others seemed to be seemed to be retreating, he was playing easily the best golf on the course as he shot a 69 to post the clubhouse lead of +7.
Harrington was in sole ownership of the lead at this point but with the conditions being what they were, the possibility of one bad card-wrecking hole was always present. Harrington then proceeded to play the golf of the championship, birdying 13 and 15 and then playing the shot of the championship on the par 5 17th with a 250 yard 5 wood to 4 feet to set up an eagle which he converted. A par at the last and Harrington was the Champion Golfer again. An amazing achievement when you consider that he considered not defending his title due to a damaged wrist which saw him play only 9 holes of practise on the Tuesday, withdraw from practice on the Wednesday and which had severely restricted his practise regime prior to the event.
Twenty year old Chris Wood won the Silver Medal for best Amateur finishing tied 5th. Birkdale has a habit of revealing great talent from the amateur ranks – Seve Ballesteros the most notable and Justin Rose the most recent – so great things should be expected from the young Englishman.
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tadieb69
Jul 21, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Questions like yours were already asked in the past by golf journalists so “golf analysts” can have long, boring and pointless discussions.
There is no solution to weather problem. It’s part of life and part of golf game.
Unless you have an answer to all this I think we should drop it right now.
BTW sprinters and other athletes have preliminary rounds which are happening in different weather conditions that affects the ones who rely on “best time” qualifying.
Cheers
bobsuruncle
Jul 21, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Kudos to Paddy for a great win.
This championship aside, I’d like to start a debate about the fairness of Open Championships in general.
The weather plays such an important role in determining the winner.
Let’s say Golfer A wins by 1 shot from Golfer B. But on one of the 4 days, Golfer B played during one of the worst storms (which accounted for say a 2-3 shot swing between the average of a morning round vs an afternoon round).
While we acknowledge that luck does play a part in golf e.g. a hole in one, lucky bounce away from OB, hitting a flagstick with an approach which goes into the hole vs deflecting 30 feet away. But should the luck of the draw of your tee time on Day 1 or 2 determine the winner of a major championship?
As an analogy. Let’s assume we are running the Olympic 100m sprint finals. But rather than all runners facing the same wind conditions, let’s assume wind conditions vary by individual lanes. Let’s say lane 2 has a tail wind of 2 mph, while lane 4 has a head wind of 2 mph. The runner in lane 2 wins from lane 4 by 0.1 seconds. The difference between the tail and head wind accounts for 0.2 seconds. My question is – who really won the race?
What are your thoughts?