The British Open Preview That No One Asked For

Sports Week Hell is in full force as there are no official American sporting events until the weekend, and even that is July baseball.

However, across the pond 155 of the world’s best players, and Bubba Watson, will tee it up at Royal Troon Golf Club in hopes of winning the year’s third major.

While this year’s version doesn’t have the same anticipation as last year’s, as Jordan Spieth was attempting to capture the third leg of a grand slam before falling one shot shy of missing a playoff, excitement is still abound as a major championship is on the line.

Out is ESPN/ABC while NBC/Golf Channel enter the broadcast, so now instead of hearing about Johnny Miller’s Final Round comeback at the 1973 U.S. Open victory every year, we get to hear about his much less discussed Final Round comeback at the 1976 BRITISH Open Championship (If you want to claim superiority, then try beating us in a war.) #Blessed

The Golf Channel will broadcast live golf at a major for the first time ever, so here are a couple of viewing tips from a professional Golf Channel watcher. Number one, whenever Brandel Chamblee is on the screen, press the mute button. No one has won less yet thought he won more in the history of golf broadcasting than Chamblee. Number two, be prepared for overly melodramatic essays and references to basketball that are marginally applicable from Rich Lerner. Number three, pray that Terry Gannon and David Feherty are the lead broadcasters.

Troon rests southwest of Glasgow and is regarded as one of the fairest tests in the British Open rota as every champion in the modern era has finished under par with the winning score usually around 12-under par.

When attempting to identify the champion, one must consider several factors. One statistic that will be shoved down your throat during the championship is that the previous six winners at Troon have all been American, dating back to Arnold Palmer’s win in 1962.

Thanks, great stuff, guys. The rise of the elite European golfer didn’t occur until the mid 1980s, and the venue only hosted the tournament once between 1983 and 1997 (the year which we all know is when Tiger Woods said, "Hello," and change golf forever). The statistic is misleading because there weren’t many opportunities when international players were at the top of the rankings. The best chance occurred in 1989 when Mark Calcavecchia bested two Australians, Greg Norman and Wayne Grady, in a playoff.

Therefore, I will not be putting too much stock into that note.

However, I will take note of the type of players the champions were at the time of his win rather than his nationality. Palmer, Tom Weiskopf, Tom Watson, Calcavecchia, Justin Leonard, and Tom Hamilton are the most recent winners at Troon. With the exception of Hamilton -- who really is an anomaly as he is a lightning-in-a-bottle type winner (Sorry, Sergio) and Leonard, who was a tremendous player in windy conditions and outstanding scrambler -- the winner has primarily used his driver on the path to victory.

However, when looking for the winner, don’t necessarily look for just bombers. In 2004 eight of the finishers inside the Top-10 ranked 25^th or better in driving accuracy during the championship, including Hamilton. Six of the Top-10 finishers ranked 10^th or better in driving accuracy in 2004.

Troon has the smallest greens of any of the courses in the rota. Therefore, the fairway is a greater premium there because it is more difficult to hold greens on approaches from the rough than other links courses.

The top-30 finishers in the 1997 British Open averaged hitting 9.64 fairways per round in 1997 while 11.53 greens per round. The fairway average dropped in 2004 to 8.69 (nice) while the green average roughly stayed the same at 11.51. Drivers saw a significant technological advancement from 1997 to 2004 allowing players to hit the ball much farther with the driver, a fact that could explain the drop in fairways while not showing a drop in greens as players were closer to the hole and had shorter clubs to the greens.

Since 2000, only six Champion Golfers of the Year won his only major, David Duval (former world No. 1), Ben Curtis, Todd Hamilton, Stewart Cink, Louis Oosthuizen (lost two other majors in a playoff), and Darren Clarke, so look for someone that already has a major to be the champion as no one multiple major champion won his first at the British Open since 2000. Further, the last winner of multiple majors to win his first at the British Open was Nick Faldo in 1987.

Since 11.5 greens per round would be good enough for 130^th on the PGA Tour in 2016, I’m looking for guys near the top of the Total Driving category and guys that make large quantities of birdies as that is another common trait of champions at Troon.

Players in the field that rank within the top-50 of both Total Driving and Birdies Per Round are: Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Henrick Stenson, Sergio Garcia, Jason Dufner, Rickie Fowler, Ryan Palmer, Kevin Kisner, Justin Rose, Billy Horschel, and Emiliano Grillo. A couple of other names that are close are Danny Lee and Scott Piercy.  

Using the criteria mentioned above, I can narrow my pick to either Spieth, McIlroy, Dustin, Dufner, and Rose (Pretty heroic way to justify picking a Top-4 player if you ask me).

I can’t make a convincing case against DJ other than when was the last time a guy won consecutive majors while adding a WGC event in the interim?

You see what I did there?! Rory is the last guy to do it when he won the British Open and the PGA Championship in 2014 with a win at the Bridgestone Invitational sandwiched between.

Rory's pissed. He got called Ringo. I mean even to a guy like me, that's cold. The conditions at Troon will be similar to that at Liverpool in 2014 where he blew the field away for three rounds in route to a win. 

Every statistical metric shows that Rors is close but has no cigar. His downfall has always been his focus. When he's sharp, he's nearly unbeatable. He appears to have an edge and focus this week that he's yet to show in recent memory. It's ride or die time. Let's roll.

PS - It's also not a bad omen that I fired a career-round yesterday while wearing the Rory McIlroy Nike Collection rather than Mr. Millar. 

PPS - I also like Adam Scott, Matthew Fitzmagic, Charl Scwartzel (minus the equipment change), and out of principle, the People's Golfer, Andrew Johnston (aka the British John Daly).