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 A British Open Dream Team
Posted: Friday July 10, 1998 05:07 PM
The British Open is different from any other major championship. The wind blows harder, the ball rolls farther, the bunker walls are steeper and the mental quandry's deeper. It takes special skills to win. If next week's championship at Royal Birkdale were a scramble, this would be our Dream Team: To drive effectively on Birkdale's firm, narrow fairways, we'd want 1994 champion Nick Price. Price's pure impact produces a low ball that penetrates the wind, flies wonderfully straight and runs hard once it hits. Tom Lehman can still make a 2-iron talk, so he'd be our man to hit the long irons. Birkdale has at least six holes that will demand long iron approaches, and the 1996 champion proved his mastery of those clubs on a bouncy and blowy links course. No one can burn short irons into a stiff wind like Paul Azinger. At Birkdale, his specialty would be most valuable on the seven par 4s at Birkdale that are under 420 yards. For all those touchy-feely-wristy-rolly shots around the greens that the British Open requires, we'd want three-time champion Seve Ballesteros. It was at Birkdale in 1976 that the 19-year-old Spaniard impressed the golf world with a particularly artistic bump-and-run the 72nd hole to tie Jack Nicklaus for second place. Putting on fast greens in heavy winds takes a stable base and good nerves, and Ernie Els has both. He has yet to win the championship, but he's been 11th or better five of the last six years. To handle the unique mental challenge of the oldest championship, we'd pick Tom Watson. By accepting tough conditions and bad breaks and forging ahead, Watson won five British Opens, including one at Birkdale in 1983. When it comes to having his head toge ther on a links, Watson remains the standard. Put that composite together and you could retire the Claret Jug. No one player can equal it, but on those weeks when his mind is right, his back is loose and his putter is behaving, Fred Couples comes the closest. He's been 9th or better six of the last e ight years he's played the British Open, and he's our pick at Birkdale.
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