Randolph's World

Well, +3 was the winning score at the 2008 British Open at Royal Birkdale. So every golfer in the world’s oldest golf major played over par. But take your hat off to Padraig Harrington – he became only the fifth player in the past 50 years to repeat as Open champion, adding his name alongside legends such as Tiger Woods, Tom Watson, Lee Trevino and Arnold Palmer. Now we are left wondering what Tiger would have scored if he had played. Of course we will never know and indeed, it would be an exercise in futility to talk about something that did not happen. Interesting to see who was second – Ian Poulter, the guy who recently said he is as good as Tiger. It this was true, he would have won, wouldn’t he? And 53-year old Greg Norman was only 9 holes away from becoming the oldest ever major champion. This is the guy who once said, when asked to comment on the newly-turned-pro Tiger Woods, that Tiger would fade away, like many before him. It was Norman who faded away on the back nine at Birkdale. A former world number one, Norman constantly fell apart at majors with his most egregious choke job coming in the 1996 Masters, when he entered the final day with a six-stroke lead over Nick Faldo, and lost. It was no different at Birkdale although the circumstances were less dramatic.

Talking about uselessness, our Danny Chia did not even make the cut, and was +23 after two days (76, 87). Remember the hoo-ha the local media (golf magazines included) made when he qualified for this Open? And there must be something wrong when the qualifying tournament is played in almost windless conditions at Sentosa Golf Club in Singapore when the Open is played on a course where the wind was so strong, it moved Greg Norman’s ball on the putting surface. Not once, but twice. Surely the Asian Tour can play this qualifier on a course with some breeze?

As usual, it was the greatest thing for Malaysian golf when Danny won the qualifier at Sentosa. The newspapers went wild and the golf magazines devoted pages to our hero, painting him as the man who would make Malaysian golf proud. After all, he wouldn’t mess up two opportunities to play at the British Open, would he? Even Danny himself was confident, as he declared after his qualifying win, “I feel proud to be the only Malaysian at the Open. It always feels good to be in the same event with the world’s best golfers and it’ll be my goal to play well at Royal Birkdale.”

Looks like he needs to be more serious in setting goals. For the sake of the local media and the golf magazines.