British Open Preview

We're all globalists these days, so ESPN has adopted the British convention of referring to this tournament as the "Open Championship." But to me, it will always be the British Open. And for what it's worth, the French agree with me.

Whatever you call it, they still play the British Open on those links courses that, in my childhood, taught me to think of Great Britain as a bleak, gloomy place with no sunshine or trees. It has always been one of the joys of summer in Kentucky or Virginia to take a break from 90-degree weather by watching the Brits shivering in the cold of a British summer. It reminds you that fall is coming.

This year's tournament is being played at Royal St. George's in Sandwich, England. Unusually, for a British Open course, Royal St. George's is in the South of England, down on the coast of Kent. To me, it is unusually ugly even by the standards of British Open courses. It honestly looks as though someone took a big pasture, mowed out some fairways and greens, and then said,, "OK, we're done." Which is probably what happened. The most interesting thing about Royal St. George's is that it was Ian Fleming's home course, and he used it -- under the pseudonym of "Royal St. Mark's" -- as the setting for the legendary match between James Bond and Goldfinger. (Although the movie version was filmed at the Stoke Park Club in Buckinghamshire.) They play the British Open at Royal St. George's from time to time, but I have never found it to be particularly memorable. Here are the winners at Sandwich in my lifetime:

1981: Bill Rogers

1985: Sandy Lyle (SCO)

1993: Greg Norman (AUS)

2003: Ben Curtis

I remember the 1993 tournament because Greg Norman actually did not choke -- he shot a 64 in the last round to beat Nick Faldo by two shots. And I remember the 2003 tournament because Ben Curtis is one of the worst golfers ever to win a major championship. These results do not give me confidence that we will get a great winner.

The big story at this year's tournament, of course, is whether Rory McIlroy can follow up his dominant performance at the U.S. Open with a victory here. McIlroy has not played in any tournament since his victory at Congressional, which strikes me as a mistake. Moreover, sweeping the two Opens is really hard to do. Here are the people who have done it:

1926: Bobby Jones

1930: Bobby Jones

1953: Ben Hogan

1971: Lee Trevino

1982: Tom Watson

2000: Tiger Woods

That's it, that's the list. If McIlroy can add his name to that group, he will have truly done something great.

As for the Americans, we will have to hope the Our Girls win the Women's World Cup on Sunday, because no American will be winning this tournament. I'm just hoping we can get somebody into the top 10.