It could be a fantastic day for Jason at The Open
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It’s reached crunch time at The Open and it’s still anybody’s game, anybody’s Claret Jug.
In the most open of Opens, nobody has really pulled away from the rest of the field and confirmed their superiority.
You can virtually throw a blanket, well two or three shots anyway, over a mass of players. With the final groups fast approaching the turn, the pressure is now well and truly on. Besides delivering their A game, players have to keep their cool and hold their nerve. Or else…
Mistakes at this critical stage are likely to prove the death knell of their Claret Jug hopes and dreams. One loose tee shot, an unlucky bounce or a squandered missed putt for a birdie could well prove curtains.
It’s all about getting the job done and currently nobody is better than that than Jordan Spieth, looking to add the Open to the Masters and US Open.
He has an uncanny knack of hitting the right shots at the right time and at -14, just a shot adrift of both Zach Johnson and Adam Scott, all his rivals will be well aware of that fact.
Having said all that, it will be interesting to see how he fares and recovers after double bogeying the 6th!
Two other Australians – Jason Day and Marc Leishman – are also hanging in there hoping to emulate Greg Norman’s success of 22 years ago.
Losing his ball in a gorse bush on the 6th, which led to a double bogey, probably put paid to Padraig Harrington’s chances of claiming a third Open but Spaniard Sergio Garcia is still plugging away in search of his elusive first.
Garcia is looking calm and composed and was -4 on the front nine (-13) and is just where he wants to be at halfway. He’ll be giving it everything on the back nine, knowing that one little mistake will end his hopes for another year.
It’s do-or-die now and it would be a brave or foolhardy person to predict a winner. So I’ll plump for Jason Day but may be with my heart ruling my head, I’ve got a sneaky suspicion that this could be the time Sergio finally gets over the line and emulates hero Seve Ballesteros who triumphed at the last Open to finish on a Monday at Lytham back in 1988….
