Open Championship Specials: Top English

The Open / Steven Rawlings / 12 July 2011 /

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Robert Rock – Is he ready to roll?

“It’s quite obvious that Robert’s a links golf fan and with a lovely late start on Thursday (15.05) he should get off to a decent start.”

England's best could all be outshone by the Rock star at Royal St George's...

With the top two players in the official world rankings heralding from England and trading as second and third favourites in the outright market - this will be a competitive market in which to venture but nevertheless I think it's worth it.

World number one Luke Donald ticks an awful lot of boxes and is almost impossible to fault but I can see at least three negatives. Current forecasts suggest a Thursday afternoon - Friday morning draw is going to be a big advantage and Luke starts off on Thursday at 9.20am. He went into the last major (US Open) with much expected of him but completely fluffed his lines and opened up with a dreadful 74. And finally, he comes here following a win last week in Scotland and although Luke's a cool customer capable of brushing that aside, it's still never easy to go back-to-back, whoever you are.

That's the market leader rejected but it's much harder to dismiss the world number two, Lee Westwood. The Worksop Wonder's performances in majors recently have been superb and since the 2009 Open Championship his form figures read 3-3-2-T16-2-T11-T3. Add to that his favourable afternoon start on Thursday and it's nigh on impossible to see Lee not contend and I suggest a saver on him at least but the one I really like is recent Italian Open champ, Robert Rock.

Rock performed very well at last year's Open despite being blown off course on the Friday. After shooting 78 in the worst of the weather on day two he rallied very well to finish in a tie for 7th. He started very slowly last week in Scotland but recovered well with rounds of 65 and 66 and given he was runner-up to Shane Lowry at the Irish Open in 2009 it's quite obvious that Robert's a links golf fan. With a lovely late start on Thursday (15.05) he should get off to a decent start and he could well be the value here.

Selections:

Back Robert Rock at [26.0] or above
Back Lee Westwood at [3.5] or above

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