Golf-Experience could be the key at Muirfield, says Donald

Golf-Experience could be the key at Muirfield, says Donald

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July 17, 2013 11:41 AM


By Tony Jimenez

GULLANE, Scotland, July 17 (Reuters) - Former world number one Luke Donald has predicted a great British Open championship this week on a rock-hard Muirfield layout that will favour the more experienced performers.

The 35-year-old Englishman, still craving his first major victory, is taking inspiration from the breakthrough wins byAdam Scott at the U.S. Masters in April and Justin Rose at last month's U.S. Open.

"Most of the time when we play tournaments it's one club to a certain yardage and you're trying to stick it to that point," Donald told reporters on the eve of the 142nd British Open.

"Here it takes a little bit more imagination but also more control. When the course is this firm, I think firmness is as good a protector as anything.

"We don't see it very often and it demands a lot of thought, a lot more conscious decisions about where you want to land the ball and how much it's going to roll. In that regard I think it's going to be a great championship."

Donald said the ball would frequently run away from the golfers on the par-71 links layout so undulating that it often appears to look like a burial ground for elephants.

"I think it's fun to be on the edge of the green five yards away and you can putt it, you can hit an eight-iron or you can hit a lob wedge," he explained. "There are so many different options.


"We don't as professionals get that opportunity very often. We play in a lot of thick rough and lush green grass all the time where the ball tends to hold.

"This week the ball is getting away from us. We are very good at hitting to a specific spot and a number but controlling how much it releases is different and more of a challenge," said Donald.

"It's going to suit the players that have experience, that know-how to play links, that are in control of their game and obviously the top players maybe have a little bit of an advantage."

Australian Scott, 32, and fellow Englishman Rose, 32, are from the same generation as Donald and he sees no reason why he cannot jump on the same major-winning bandwagon.

"It's an inspiration in terms of looking at Justin, looking at Adam," said the world number nine.

"They have had similar career paths, up until they won a major, to myself, having won a World Golf Championship and some big tournaments around the world but not having quite broken through.

"I feel like, hopefully, my turn's coming. We've been on a similar path up until this year and obviously they have stepped up a gear.

"I would love to follow in their footsteps," Donald added. (Editing by Ed Osmond)

David Duval still striving to recapture former glory

David Duval still striving to recapture former glory

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Jay Hart July 17, 2013 11:56 AMYahoo Sports




GULLANE, Scotland – Everywhere he went, the whispers were the same:

Is that David Duval?

Yes, it was David Duval making his way around Muirfield on Wednesday in final preparation for the British Open, and while most golf fans know who David Duval is, they can't believe he's here. It's been 12 years since his last Tour win, which also marked the climax of his career. Since winning the 2001 British Open, Duval has gone from Tiger Woods' No. 1 rival to a guy just trying to hang on.




David Duval, practicing at Muirfield on Tuesday, says he's close to returning to his old form. (Getty Images)He hasn't made a cut in six events in 2013, earned $32,936 in prize money last year and is currently ranked 1,514th in the world – or 1,513 spots lower than he was in 1999.



And yet raising the Claret Jug on Sunday, he said, isn't out of the question.

"As we sit here and talk Wednesday afternoon, I feel like if I can do what I've been doing in practice and have been working on, I will play well," Duval told Yahoo! Sports. "Does that translate to winning? Well, I wouldn't be surprised if I had an opportunity to."

He'd be the only one, though it's not hard to understand why the confidence still exists.

Before Tiger Woods ran off a stretch of 264 straight weeks atop the world rankings, he and Duval were in a battle for the top spot. Between 1997 and 2001, Duval won 13 times, finished second twice at the Masters and once at the U.S. Open.

In those years when Woods was solidifying himself as the greatest player of this generation, his main challenger was David Duval. That memory doesn't go away, no matter how many years stack up between your last win and today.

This is why, naïvely or not, Duval believes he still has the skill set to win. It's just a matter of rediscovering it. Where he lost it has been the subject of countless dissections, but he explains it rather simply: injuries led to compensations in his swing, which wrecked his game and, by extension, his confidence.

He's spent the past decade or so trying to relocate the sweet stroke that made him Nike's $7 million man in 2000. Finally, he says, he's found it.

"I feel like all the work I've been in with the – changes is not the right word – the restoration of my golf swing, trying to put it back to what it was, I'm really close to having done that," he said. "Am I going to play great this week? I don't know, but I think I'm going to play great here real soon."

And now the waiting game commences, again. This isn't the first time since his career went south that Duval has expressed an assurance in his game. "I'm more confident in my golf swing than I've ever been," he told Golf Digest.

That was 2006.

He's shown flashes since, finishing second at the AT&T at Pebble Beach in 2010, but mostly it's been a lot of missed cuts. With each one, that 2001 win at Royal Lytham & St Annes gets further and further in the rearview mirror, and the foundation from which he maintains today's confidence – his past success – gets shakier and shakier.

One begets the other, but for how much longer?

"That's the chicken and the egg: success or confidence. You need both," he said. "You need to gain both, and continue to gain both, and I've been gaining that on the golf course and in my practice sessions. Who knows?"

That's just it with David Duval, and golf really: Who knows? Odds are against him being a contender into the weekend at Muirfield. But maybe he can restore the game he once had, if only for a few days.

If the game's got one thing left for him, it's hope.

Why is Tiger Woods the British Open favorite?

Why is Tiger Woods the British Open favorite?

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Pat Forde July 17, 2013 12:39 PMYahoo Sports




HADDINGTON, Scotland – At Scotbet on Market Street, the TVs are tuned to the dog track and horse races. But sitting on the table in the middle of the place is a fresh stack of British Open betting sheets.

Two doors down, at Ladbrokes, they were also taking action on both the horses and the greyhounds – and cricket, and soccer. But the talk was about the Open being contested just up the two-lane road that winds from the coast through the farmlands to here.

At these legal betting parlors five miles south of Muirfield, site of the 142nd British Open, it might as well still be 2008. Here in the time warp, there was no broken leg. There was no crashed SUV. There was no career-sabotaging scandal.

Here in the time warp, Tiger Woods remains the favorite – in this major, and in every major he's contested since his last win. (Which, truth be told, is similar to the betting patterns in America as well.)

Doesn't matter that he hasn't won any of the last 20, or that he hasn't won the British since 2006. If forced to put their pounds on any individual golfer, the Brits are betting on Tiger.

[Related: Tiger Woods' dominant days are long gone]

Woods is the 10-1 favorite at Ladbrokes, and 8-1 at Scotbet. When asked about the persistent appeal ofTiger, Colin, the ruddy-faced bet taker at Ladbrokes, explained, "He likes the [left-to-right] fades, and the course plays for fades." That case can be made, but after walking all 18 holes of the circular layout Wednesday, I found six holes playing with the wind, three playing against the wind, six playing into a right-to-left crosswind and three playing into left-to-right winds.

In other words, the winner on this ancient course bordered by stone walls and the sea is going to have to shape all kinds of shots in constantly changing wind. This isn't a layout where nine holes go one way and the other nine go in the opposite direction, leading to a modicum of predictability and routine. The breeze blowing in off the Firth of Forth will be coming from all directions, depending on the hole.

So it will take more than fades for Tiger to win his first major in five years.

As the guy behind the betting window at Scotbet pointed out, "He's 8-1, but normally he'd be 9-4." So Woods' appeal is diminished to the point that he's not the prohibitive punter's choice. Nobody is.

(Looking at the odds, you wonder whether past precedent is being factored in at all. Phil Mickelson, who has never won the British Open and rarely come close, is the second choice at both establishments – he's 16-1 Ladbrokes, 20-1 at Scotbet.)

The biggest difficulty in labeling anyone other than Tiger the favorite stems from the fact that nobody has consistently risen to the occasion in the last 20 majors.

[Related: Tiger Woods says elbow feels fine after Muirfield practice round]

Padraig Harrington won the last two of 2008, but hasn't won on the PGA or European Tour since. He's missed the cut in seven of the last 18 majors.

Rory McIlroy is the only other golfer to win two majors in the post-Tiger Dominance Era, and everyone agrees he has the game to win many more. But in 2013 his game has digressed, and that digression has been analyzed like the Zapruder film by everyone on this side of the pond.

Sir Nick Faldo weighed in to suggest young Rory isn't working hard enough at his craft. Naturally, McIlroy was asked about it Wednesday.

"He said I should be at the course 9 to 5," McIlroy said. "I was actually on the range at 6:15 [a.m.] and got out of the gym at 6:15 [p.m.], actually a 12-hour day compared to his eight-hour day."

How's that for a little pot-bunker sand smacked back at Sir Nick?

But no matter how many hours he's spending at the course, nobody is rushing to anoint McIlroy the favorite here. He's a tepid 28-1 at Scotbet.

There is some support for the past two major winners, England's Justin Rose and Australia's Adam Scott (both 20-1 at Scotbet). Some are still backing Englishman Luke Donald (25-1), who has risen to the level of being consistently good in major championship play without ever being good enough to win. The UK punters also have some love for homeboys Graeme McDowell (came close last year) and Lee Westwood (came close in 2004, '09 and '10), both 25-1.

But for the most part, they're turning to Tiger Woods, despite five years of reasons why he's not the guy to back.

Still, there are reasons to like Woods.

He had a scorching first half of the year, with four Tour victories. It can be argued that a single catastrophic break (the chip off the flagstick and into the water and into two-shot penalty purgatory at the Masters) is the only thing separating him from having already pocketed his 15th major. He was not disastrous at the U.S. Open, finishing tied for 32nd while playing through an elbow injury. His last British victory, in 2006, also came in warm, dry, low-scoring conditions in which he kept his driver in the bag and went with irons off the tee – which is his pronounced plan here.

And the track record at Muirfield says that this is a course for heavyweights, not fluke champions. The Ben Curtises and Todd Hamiltons and Paul Lawries win elsewhere. The past seven champions at Muirfield have been named Els, Faldo (twice), Watson, Trevino, Nicklaus and Player.

Tiger Woods' name would certainly fit on that list.

The bettors in Scotland believe in him, despite five years of reasons not to.