Capelle On Golf

British Open Coverage

The sorry state of so many in the top 20 in the World Golf Rankings and Tiger Woods’ absence makes the British Open a wide open. The form chart lists each player’s last three starts. In rating the players, more weight is given to the later starts. Red is hot, black in lukewarm, blue is cold.

Six of the 20 players are hot, six are lukewarm, and eight are cold, some icy cold. Anthony Kim is arguably the hottest player while K.J. Choi’s game deserted him four months ago.

Of the three players in the top 23 who are not playing, two are injured (Woods and Donald) while Perry (#20 in the WGR) has decided to “honor” a previous commitment. This makes him the only uninjured player on the WGR top 46 that is not playing.

Recent Play by the WGR Top 23
1 – Tiger Woods - Injured
2 – Mickelson – 20t, 18t, 38t
3 – Adam Scott – 25t, 54t, 26t
4 – Geoff Ogilvy – 7t, 9, 9t
5 – Stewart Cink – 30t, 14t, 1
6 – Sergio Garcia – 4t, 18t, 2
7 – Ernie Els – MC, 14t, 9t
8 – Steve Stricker – MC, 29t, 18t
9 – Justin Rose – MC, 19t, 38t
10 – Vijay Singh – 11t, 65t, 5
11 – K.J. Choi – 53t, MC, 49t
12 – Jim Furyk – 36t, 36t, 3t
13 – Anthony Kim – 40t, 26t, 1
14 – Padraig Harrington – 4t, 36t, 17t
15 – Trevor Immelman – 2t, 65t, MC
16 – Henrik Stenson – MC, 6t, 33t
17 – Rory Sabatini – 27t, MC, 58t
18 – Lee Westwood – 3, 5t, 19t
19 – Luke Donald – Injured
20 – Kenny Perry – Playing elsewhere
21 – Miguel A. Jimenez – MC, 66t, 3t
22 – Aaron Baddeley – 32t, 58t, 29t
23 – Robert Karlsson – 4t, 13t, 6t

Trends are useful in assessing a player’s chances, but the game is golf, so anything is possible. Trevor Immelman went 48t, 40t, MC before winning the Masters, and Tiger didn’t play for two months before the US Open but won it anyway.

While the odds say a player from the top 20 (top 23 in this case) should win, it would be no shock if a player further, perhaps much further down the list were toasting from the Claret Jug come Sunday night.