The Open Championship

[Baddar]

So, The Open at St Andrews starts on Thursday. Who's watching?

I think every round is on the BBC in one way or another (either live or on the red button) and I prefer their coverage to Sky Sports'.

I've put a couple of bets on too. Most of them are 'outside' bets, but there's no point in putting money on Tiger E/W when he's only 11/2 to begin with. :/

I have £1 singles on;

Kaymer 33/1

Donald 40/1

Allenby 80/1

All of them are E/W, and Betfred are paying a quarter of the odds for the first 6 places.

Then there's another £2 gone on Casey to be the top GB/Ire player at 11/1 (a bit contradictory considering I've got Donald down to win it, but I'd be happy with Donald finishing 2nd behind Casey. ) and Furyk to be the top American at 14/1. I don't think his form is great at the moment, but I like him and anything can happen in Golf I guess.

[Liam]

Not going to have a bet, but might watch it. An obvious choice, considering one of them winning the Scottish Open, but I'd be backing the Molinari brothers to perform.

[Baddar]

Yeah, I noticed that Edoardo is longer odds than Francesco, despite finishing above him (and winning) the Scottish Open. What I find so often though is that when players have a great week in one event, they do awful at the next.

See: McDowell since his US Open win.

[Baddar]

Wow, McIlroy. He shot the best opening round ever at The Open earlier. (-9) - Tiger finished at five under.

[sahyder1]

The course isn't playing like an "Open" course. Conditions were ideal this AM. Even Tiger Woods said it was weird.

[Baddar]

Kaymer finished his 1st round at three under, according to the scoreboard on the BBC Sport website. They didn't follow him ONCE during their coverage today. Dicks.

Someone was saying in their live text that the guys who had the best of the weather today (McIlroy, Woods etc.) will likely get the best of tomorrow's too. You would think that if Rory can post a 69 tomorrow (-3), he'll be in a good position to win it over the weekend.

I predict that Tiger will go one better than today and post a -6 tomorrow, making it 11 under for the championship overall. He seems comfortable with the new putter.

EDIT: Friday's tee-times, BST. Spoiler'd because of size;

0630 Peter Senior (Aus), Mark Calcavecchia, Anders Hansen (Den)

0641 Louis Oosthuizen (RSA), Jeff Overton (US), Colm Moriarty

0652 Ignacio Garrido (Spa), Hirofumi Miyase (Jpn), Shane Lowry

0703 Kevin Na (US), Tom Lehman (US), Marc Leishman (Aus)

0714 Sandy Lyle, Bradley Dredge, Koumei Oda (Jpn)

0725 Vijay Singh (Fij), Simon Khan, Scott Verplank (USA)

0736 Y.E. Yang (Kor), Luke Donald, Ricky Barnes (US)

0747 Toru Taniguchi (Jpn), Robert Karlsson (Swe), Dustin Johnson (US)

0758 Jerry Kelly (US), Alvaro Quiros (Spa), Katsumasa Miyamoto (Jpn)

0809 Peter Hanson (Swe), Francesco Molinari (Ita), Ben Curtis (US)

0820 Paul Casey, Angel Cabrera (Arg), Rickie Fowler (US)

0831 Miguel Angel Jimenez (Spa), Lee Westwood, Adam Scott (Aus)

0842 Graeme McDowell, Jim Furyk (USA), Geoff Ogilvy (Aus)

0858 Steve Stricker (US), Hiroyuki Fujita (Jpn), Sergio Garcia (Spa)

0909 Colin Montgomerie, Phil Mickelson (US), Retief Goosen (RSA)

0920 Edoardo Molinari (Ita), Rhys Davies, Justin Leonard (US)

0931 Zach Johnson (US), Martin Kaymer (Ger), Eric Chun (Kor)

0942 K J Choi (Kor), Bubba Watson (US), Victor Dubuisson (Fra)

0953 Ben Crane (US), Richard S Johnson (Swe), Thomas Aiken (Rsa)

1004 Jason Bohn (US), Kurt Barnes (Aus), Laurie Canter

1015 Jose Manuel Lara (Spa), Darren Fichardt (RSA), Heath Slocum (USA)

1026 Paul Streeter, Brian Gay (US), Gareth Maybin

1037 Paul Goydos (US), Tim Petrovic (US), Jean Hugo (Rsa)

1048 Gary Clark, D.A. Points (US), Danny Chia (Mal)

1059 Glen Day (US), Josh Cunliffe (RSA), Tyrrell Hatton

1110 Jae-bum Park (Kor), George McNeill (US), Simon Edwards

1141 Thomas Levet (Fra), Paul Lawrie, Steve Marino (US)

1152 Loren Roberts (US), Mathew Goggin (Aus), Marcel Siem (Ger)

1203 Robert Rock, John Senden (Aus), Bill Haas (USA)

1214 Jason Dufner (US), Simon Dyson, Soren Hansen (Den)

1225 Todd Hamilton (US), Ryuichi Oda (Jpn), Alexander Noren (Swe)

1236 Andrew Coltart, John Daly (US), Seung-yul Noh (Kor)

1247 Sir Nick Faldo, Martin Laird, Soren Kjeldsen (Den)

1258 David Duval (US), Ross McGowan, Trevor Immelman (Rsa)

1309 Ryan Moore (US), Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano (Spa), Charl Schwartzel (RSA)

1320 Robert Allenby (Aus), Nick Watney (USA), Oliver Wilson

1331 Lucas Glover (US), Rory McIlroy, Tim Clark (RSA)

1342 Thomas Bjorn (Den), Hunter Mahan (US), Shunsuke Sonoda (Jpn)

1353 Ian Poulter, Ernie Els (RSA), Stewart Cink (US)

1409 Yuta Ikeda (Jpn), Sean O'Hair (USA), Ross Fisher

1420 Tiger Woods (US), Justin Rose, Camilo Villegas (Col)

1431 Padraig Harrington, Ryo Ishikawa (Jpn), Tom Watson (US)

1442 Jin Jeong (Kor), Henrik Stenson (Swe), Matt Kuchar (US)

1453 Jason Day (Aus), Chris Wood, Kenny Perry (US)

1504 Darren Clarke, Mike Weir (Can), Davis Love III (US)

1515 Fredrik Andersson Hed (Swe), Thongchai Jaidee (Tha), J.B. Holmes (US)

1526 Mark O'Meara (US), Byeong-Hun An (Kor), Stephen Gallacher

1537 Michael Sim (Aus), Alejandro Canizares (Spa), Gregory Havret (Fra)

1548 Zane Scotland, Tom Pernice Jnr. (US), Jamie Abbott

1559 Bo Van Pelt (US), Phillip Archer, Ewan Porter (Aus)

1610 Cameron Percy (Aus), Tano Goya (Arg), Kyung-Tae Kim (Kor)

1621 Steven Tiley, Mark F Haastrup (Den), Tom Whitehouse

[sahyder1]

Is that really John Daly on the first page of the leader board? How did that happen?

[naiwf]

Carrot Top shot an 80 after his 63 yesterday and is basically out of the tournament.

[golfrfan]

St. Andrews is the home of yet another unofficial leaving of the Open Championship. I hope he comes back but Tom Watson is getting up there. Watson on the bridge was very touching. Watson has always loved this tournament just as much as he loved the US Open. Its sad to see him playing the eighteenth hole for the last time.

[sahyder1]

St. Andrews is the home of yet another unofficial leaving of the Open Championship. I hope he comes back but Tom Watson is getting up there. Watson on the bridge was very touching. Watson has always loved this tournament just as much as he loved the US Open. Its sad to see him playing the eighteenth hole for the last time.

He's still going to play a couple more years. This was probably his last competitive round of golf on this course though.

[Baddar]

Hopefully Kaymer and Casey can carry things on nicely through to the end of this round. It'll put me in with a chance of collecting some money tomorrow...

[Baddar]

Well played Louis Oosthuizen. No-one looked like catching him in the final round.

And typically, just when I'm in the money, Casey and Kaymer both have shockers in the last few holes, pushing them from 2nd and 3rd respectively to Casey finishing behind Westwood and level with McIlroy, and Kaymer outside the top 6. :/