Hopefully this win today puts to rest the media's notion that Sergio lost last year's tournament rather than Harrington winning it. It seemed like that was how the media saw last year's Open with the way they were constantly showing Sergio's missed putt on the 72nd hole. Today's win should validate that Harrington is the Open Champion, now for two straight years.
As for the final round and some observations: Ian Poulter made a charge, if you can call a 1 under par round a charge, and finished in second place. I was a bit disappointed in his final round outfit though. Despite the pink pants, it was a bit tame. I guess he was showing his respect for the oldest major. Part way through the final round this morning I started thinking that it might be cool if Chris Wood, the amateur, would win. He was also moving up the leaderboard and finished very well. In the top 5 or 6 I think. The announcers kept criticizing Greg Norman's aggressive playing style. Let's see, Tom Watson missed the cut and I don't think Paul Azinger played at all this week. Yeah, they know better than Greg, the 54 hole leader.
Speaking of the announcers: Every so often they would start the whole "If Tiger was here..." and "Tiger's watching back home and just wishing he was here...". First, I want confirmation that he really was sitting at home and watching the British Open. Somehow I doubt he would be doing that. Second, what makes them think Tiger could have done any better than anyone else at the tournament? I don't think they have any other event to compare this to so they don't have any concrete fact or performance to refer to (especially when the announcers/players kept talking about the weather conditions being the worst ever). Third, the announcers said "there would be no * beside Harrington's name" Of course there wouldn't be because Tiger was there with every breath the announcers took. The announcers didn't leave him out of it at all and even once slipped and referred to Chris Wood as "Woods". Harrington may not have played against Tiger today, but we viewers were subjected to Tiger talk. Fourth, there's no reason to put the * beside Harrington's name because he beat Tiger last year and there's no reason to expect that he couldn't do it again.
I'm also getting very sick of all the Anthony Kim talk. It's almost as bad as the Tiger talk. I've come up with a conspiracy theory surrounding the media's obsession with Anthony Kim. Here it is, keep in mind it's a theory and not based on any fact: Nike feels like it's missing out with Tiger sidelined so they are paying the media extra money to mention Kim and feature him on TV as much as possible so Nike can get more advertising and possibly build Kim up so he can someday be a big cash cow for them like Tiger is.
One last opinion regarding the media. ABC/ESPN should not have done so many close up shots of Chris Evert. She looks younger the farther away from the face the camera is. That wasn't very flattering of them.
Final thought: As I said before, I don't want to hear anything about Sergio's putting after what I witnessed these last few days with all the other players missing all of those short putts. Sergio's putting is not why he didn't win. According to the stats, Sergio missed a lot of greens in reg and a lot of fairways. His putting wasn't too bad. His average was 30.5 and the field average was 30.28. By comparison, Anthony Kim's average was 33 putts per round. I picked Kim because Azinger said he was maybe second to last in the putting stats this week.
2 comments:
You're the staunchest Sergio defender I know! I expected him to have a better British Open.
You are the first one to point that out. Without a shadow of doubt Ian Poulter had turned out in what could only be described as a bit of a dull outfit. Atleast by his preposterous standards for sure! But what was not tame was the charge he made towards with a serious shot at the claret jug except for the fact that Harrington decided he just did not want to give anyone a shot at the title and played a flawless back nine.
Chris Wood definitely had a great outing and he was in with a seriously improbably chance till he fluffed it up towards the end. But it was a superhuman effort by the young amateur. Had he entered the event as a professional he would have upwards of £100k but despite that he will know for sure that he will take back far more confidence than he could have ever imagined. The boy deserves to be in the big league and it will not be long before we start hearing about him more regularly.
As for Greg Norman, well done sir! You are married to a fabulous woman and you have still got what it takes to compete with the best. What more could you ask for?
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