The Open Championship 2018: Predictions, picks and upsets
By Luke Norris
Okay, let’s have a little fun here with a few guys that could give us a great story at Carnoustie this week. I’m not going to call all of these upsets as I’ve still got three guys in the top 30 in here and a couple of former winners of The Open. But these are guys that would be great watching down the stretch on Sunday afternoon.
14. Paul Casey
Doesn’t it seem Paul Casey should have more than nine top-10 finishes in major championships? It seems his name is somewhere around the top of the leaderboard when these tournaments roll around, doesn’t it? And yet he doesn’t even have a runner-up finish at a major, his best finish coming at The Open, where he tied for third in 2010 at St. Andrews. But even that wasn’t that close because Louis Oosthuizen left everyone in the dust, beating Lee Westwood by seven and Casey, Henrik Stenson and Rory McIlroy by eight. And yet, after all these years, 40-year-old Paul Casey is still out here grinding and playing some of the best golf of his career. He held off Tiger at the Valspar to win there, just recently nearly won the Travelers, got a top-five at the Wells Fargo and carded top-20 finishes in both The Masters and the U.S. Open. It would be great to see him have a chance on Sunday.
17. Henrik Stenson
As I’ve been going in order of the world rankings, this is the spot where I would usually put Matt Kuchar. As much as I’d love to see him finally get that major, I just don’t think it’s in the cards for him so I’m going with the man that set the scoring record just two years ago at 20-under in that phenomenal duel with Phil Mickelson at Royal Troon. His ball-striking remains phenomenal and if he can fix a few problems he’s been having around the green, he could put on another show this week. He tied for sixth at Shinnecock Hills and tied for fifth at Augusta so he’s having a great year in the majors already and a second Open Championship win in Scotland is very possible.
29. Ian Poulter
It seems crazy to believe that it’s been a decade since Ian Poulter was the runner-up at The Open, his best-ever finish in a major, but that is the case as he tees it up for the 17th time at this championship. If only the Ryder Cup were a major for him, am I right? Now 42 years old, the likelihood of him ever winning a major seems unlikely, but this little resurgence has been a joy to watch. Just a year and a half ago, the former fifth-ranked player in the world had dropped out of the top 200 and would miss five consecutive major championships, not returning until The Open last year where he finished tied for 14th. A T2 finish earlier in the year at The Players had gotten him back into the top 100 and he dramatically got himself back into the top 30 with a win in Houston a week before The Masters this year to earn a spot at Augusta. Throw in finishing in the top 25 in six of his last seven outings and you’ve got a great story, one that would be even better with him holding the Claret Jug.
71. Tiger Woods
Don’t pretend you’re not thinking about it. Love him or hate him, you care about what Tiger Woods does at The Open this week. As I’ve been saying over and over again, the problem is that he hasn’t been able to put four good rounds together in the same tournament. The usual issue in this latest comeback is getting off to a slow start, including that opening-round 78 at the U.S. Open. But he obviously wasn’t the only one having trouble at Shinnecock Hills. And for those on Twitter who were saying how sad it was to see him torture himself at the end of his career, just stop it. So many struggled that week and if we’re keeping track, he finished ahead of Bubba Watson, Jason Day, Charl Schwartzel, Matt Kuchar, Sergio Garcia and Jon Rahm. So please find a new argument. No, he’s not the player he once was and we got spoiled watching him all of those years and who knows how he’ll react to being back at The Open for the first time in three years, but we know we’ll be watching. Tiger played very well in tying for fourth at the Quicken Loans National a few weeks back, shooting three rounds in the 60s and won’t have to be as accurate as he would in other places. He’ll still have to make some putts but he’s won on courses like this before, even if he doesn’t particularly enjoy Carnoustie. He’s testing out a new driving iron in practice rounds and it will be interesting to see the approach he takes in his attempt for major win number 15.
112. Lee Westwood
Lee Westwood, now 45, is not only one of the all-time greats never to have won a major but just one of the all-time greats in general. With 23 wins on the European Tour, good for eighth on the all-time list, the Englishman has knocked on the major door so many times in the last two decades plus but just hasn’t ever been able to seal the deal. He’s finished in the top 10 an astounding 18 times — nearly half of those were third or better — but he’s running out of chances. He’s going off at 70-1 to win in the latest betting odds and the likelihood of him actually emerging victorious is slim to none. He’s fallen out of the top 100 in the world rankings for the first time in 15 years but a comeback victory at The Open would be one hell of a story.