British Open Golf Major Starts Today

The 135th British Open Championship begins today and the favorite to win is none other than Tiger Woods. The legal offshore sportsbooks will obviously favor Tiger on this type of course, but the actual winner usually ends up the person least on the radar. Now besides betting, the fun thing about major championships is that they provide interesting story lines and great golf entertainment.

That's what makes them the premier events on the pro golf tour, no matter what the PGA Tour might be thinking with its contrived playoff system beginning next year. Pick a major and heading into it there will be a raging debate about whether Irving Gazork can finally win a major. Or whether Wally Ballou can pull off the Grand Slam. Or whether Angus McHaggis can win the claret jug in front of the home folk at Royal Fringus Court.

This year's British Open has more subplots than a Charles Dickens novel, representing for several key players and the much-maligned venue itself, the best of times and the worst of times.

Explore the darkest attics of the memory and it is difficult to locate a major as covered with compelling question marks as this one. How will Phil Mickelson's collapse of Jean Van de Velde-like proportions on the final hole of the U.S. Open at Winged Foot affect what was already a questionable psyche? Will it make him tougher and smarter, or will it leave wounds so deep that doubt will now be his constant companion? Surely, it is not a good sign when a player's departing words at a major are, "I am such an idiot." Then again, any therapist would say that recognition is the first step to recovery.

In the end, there will be a champion quite likely someone currently on the radar screen of few prognosticators. The real result? We will be back at Royal Liverpool in another 39 years.

July 20, 2006
Posted By Tom Jones
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com    Previous Page | Internet Gambling | Top Online Casinos | Submit News!