Once again, we head to the final day of a major championship, one that has been slightly more interesting than expected. Without Tiger, it’s like throwing a 21st birthday party and only inviting your grandmother’s friends over and watch reruns of Gone With the Wind, which is pretty apt, because that’s exactly what we should be calling this British Open in Royal Birkdale, England.
The first round and third round were absolutely horrific for the golfers, and one that we took special interest in was our all time favourite man in shades: Mr David Duval. He played spectacular for two rounds and as we eagerly waited for his tee off for the third round, he rewarded us with a triple bogey and a downward spiral more painful to watch than removing your toenails with a rusted plier. He was already like +10 before the turn and at that time, all our hopes of him winning the Open had been dashed. Game over, Mr Duval, we’ll have to wait another day for a possible fairytale. Like Tiger, I felt that he jinxed himself after the round 2 in his interview, saying that he is coming to greatness.
You know what that means. Falling flat back onto earth in the most humiliating fashion possible to mankind.
OK, the Gilagolf Prediction Engine has been tweaked and here are the nominees to lift the Claret Jug!
1. Greg Norman
It would be a fairytale but sorry no. We all recall 1996 Masters when Greg imploded in one of golf’s greatest meltdowns in history. He’s going to face it once again (failure, but not the meltdown), but it will be a close call. He won’t implode, but look to see his 2 stroke lead evaporate by the turn and then it’s a free for all. Which comes to blows between:
2. Paddy Harrington
We all like Paddy. Especially the way he walks. If you noticed the way he walks, he strides with complete expression across the fairways. It’s like Bozo the Clown with the size 20 shoes. His gait is definitely very advantageous especially with 50 KM winds buffeting the smaller guys around. Tim Clark has to tie a chainball to his feet to keep him from flying off into the ocean. Will Paddy repeat? No, he won’t. He’ll be crashing in the back 9.
3. KJ Choi
The first asian to win a major? I would love to live to see the day, but it is a possibility. KJ has played 3 days of pretty fantastic golf, with the expression of a piece of brick. He has shown that he has what it takes to win tournaments and in line with so many first time major winners grabbing the Claret Jug, GPE is highy biased to KJ. Also, GPE is automatically skewed to any Asians with any chance to win. And we’re talking about Asian Asians, not the ones who are Asians but has the American flag next to their names, although we think AK is cool and he’s very good…but KJ CHOI YOU ARE THE BRITISH OPEN CHAMP!!!! GO KJ!!!!!!
4. Simon Wakefield
There is no data for this person in GPE. We will just assume he will fizzle out under the intense scrutiny that comes from playing the last few groups.
Dark Horses
Anthony Kim — Told ya we liked AK. He is confident enough not to meltdown, but his game might not be complete enough to negotiate the winds. But his belt buckle is big, so that will work for him.
Ross Fisher — This dude blew the field in The European Open a couple of weeks back by 7 shots. SEVEN!
Henrik Stenson — He’s always a dangerous guy. Plus, he has a woman caddie, Fanny, which we think is quite cool. How often do you get a woman to lug a bag for you for nearly 5 miles a day? He must have some special persuasive powers no one else has.