The Open 2005

[Guest Booker T & The MG's]

Golf once again has come back home to St Andrews for The Open. Who do you see winning this year?

The obvious choice is Tiger Woods, as things stand he is joint leader at -6 with England's Steve Webster, but the last few years has thrown very surpising winners (Paul Lawrie, Ben Curtis, Todd Hamilton) so it could easily throw up another suprise.

Tiger obviously loves playing at St Andrews, after his first round he is edging towards being my pick, but if he does'nt I think it will another 1st time major winner, someone like Luke Donald or Sergio Garcia, someone who can stay consistent for 4 rounds. I really hope a European wins it sometime soon, it's been too long without a European major winner.

It will also be the last time at The Open for the greatest player of all time Jack Nicklaus, he will follow Arnold Palmer by finishing up his Open career at St Andrews.

As things stand at 15:30 on Thursday the leaderboard looks like this.

T1 Tiger Woods

18 USA 66 -6

T1 Steve Webster

9 ENG -6 -6

3 Chris Riley

18 USA 67 -5

T4 Luke Donald

18 ENG 68 -4

T4 Retief Goosen

18 RSA 68 -4

T4 Peter Lonard

18 AUS 68 -4

T4 José Maria Olazábal

18 ESP 68 -4

T4 Eric Ramsay (am)

18 SCO 68 -4

T4 Scott Verplank

18 USA 68 -4

T4 Tino Schuster

17 GER -4 -4

[sahyder1]

How could Sergio not be on your poll? Mark my words.....he wins. I'm gonna have to wake up early in the morning to catch Nicklaus tomorrow

[Guest Booker T & The MG's]

How could Sergio not be on your poll?

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[RawIsWar]

Tiger is the man to stop.

Just watched bits on TV a while ago, im not a Golf fan and it showed. I fell asleep

[Guest Booker T & The MG's]

Leaderboard at the end of day 2:-

1 Tiger Woods

18 USA 66 67 -11

2 Colin Montgomerie

18 SCO 71 66 -7

T3 Robert Allenby

18 AUS 70 68 -6

T3 Brad Faxon

18 USA 72 66 -6

T3 Trevor Immelman

18 RSA 68 70 -6

T3 Peter Lonard

18 AUS 68 70 -6

T3 José Maria Olazábal

18 ESP 68 70 -6

T3 Vijay Singh

18 FJI 69 69 -6

T3 Scott Verplank

18 USA 68 70 -6

T10 Bart Bryant

18 USA 69 70 -5

T10 Fred Couples

18 USA 68 71 -5

T10 Sergio Garcia

18 ESP 70 69 -5

T10 Simon Khan

18 ENG 69 70 -5

T10 Bo Van Pelt

18 USA 72 67 -5

First off today firstly belonged to one man.

What a player, a legend, the guy was still competitive today and very nearly made the cut. One of a kind, that's the standard for Tiger to catch.

Tiger was awesome today, a near faultless round. Still if his putter goes cold tomorrow then there are a host of players playing well who can catch him.

For me personally, the patriotic Scot in me came out watching this man play today.

C'Mon Montie!!! The crowd were loving it. I get my hopes still after all these years of misses. If Phil Mickelson can break his major duck then Montie can. It's going to be one hell of crowd following Montie and Tiger round tomorrow. If the Montie that plays like he normally can and he did today, then he can catch Tiger.

[naiwf]

Montgomerie will shoot a +3 tomorrow and not even be a factor on Sunday. He's a choke artist.

[Guest Booker T & The MG's]

Montgomerie will shoot a +3 tomorrow and not even be a factor on Sunday. He's a choke artist.

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[Big Red Fury]

Montgomerie will shoot a +3 tomorrow and not even be a factor on Sunday. He's a choke artist.

←

All the evidence in majors not much else, most definatly not the Ryder Cup, points towards that. But Mickelson was in the same position as Montie is for years and he did when it was'nt realistically expected.

Mickelson's example has shown that it can be turned around after years of "choking".

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[Guest Booker T & The MG's]

Montgomerie will shoot a +3 tomorrow and not even be a factor on Sunday. He's a choke artist.

←

All the evidence in majors not much else, most definatly not the Ryder Cup, points towards that. But Mickelson was in the same position as Montie is for years and he did when it was'nt realistically expected.

Mickelson's example has shown that it can be turned around after years of "choking".

←

[Big Red Fury]

NAIWF was close, Monty got within a stroke then shot an inward 39 to effectively hand the Open to Woods.

[Guest Booker T & The MG's]

Final leaderboard:-

1 Tiger Woods

18 USA 66 67 71 70 274 -14

2 Colin Montgomerie

18 SCO 71 66 70 72 279 -9

T3 Fred Couples

18 USA 68 71 73 68 280 -8

T3 José Maria Olazábal

18 ESP 68 70 68 74 280 -8

T5 Michael Campbell

18 NZL 69 72 68 72 281 -7

T5 Sergio Garcia

18 ESP 70 69 69 73 281 -7

T5 Retief Goosen

18 RSA 68 73 66 74 281 -7

T5 Bernhard Langer

18 GER 71 69 70 71 281 -7

T5 Geoff Ogilvy

18 AUS 71 74 67 69 281 -7

T5 Vijay Singh

18 FJI 69 69 71 72 281 -7

Tiger was so solid yesterday, picked up shots at the easier holes, it looked like he played exactly to his plan. Montie knew that even when he got to -12 one shot behind that Tiger was going to pick up shots which he did, Montie went looking for birdies, and as he said you can't do that round The Old Course. I would'nt say Montie or anyone else for that matter handed it to Woods, they made it easier for him, but in the end he was just far too good.

[TheArsenal]

I voted Tiger Woods.....

He what?

......So......it seems I got here late....