In a best-of-seven series format, Game 4 takes on a whole new meaning when the series score is 2-1.Well, it's Game 4 in this series between Patterson and I. Who's got the advantage? It's me, and I'm lookin to make that a 3-1 stranglehold with a win by an International player in this week's British Open.
I've one-upped Patterson by taking my purple-clad Lakers in the NBA Finals and by tabbing a foreign player to win the US Open (Graeme McDowell). Patterson's only claim to fame in this series was by virtue of our golfing showdown last month on Missouri soil. Come to Kansas, and I'll show you who is the better duffer! I promise you different results! Pomona rules, Venezuelan rules, whatever you want to call them, will ultimately favor the All-American from Eureka High!
Speaking of Eureka, a suburb to the north on K-99 is a city called Emporia that is home to William Allen White and Bren Fisher. Ya might have heard of White, a famed journalist, and you're going to hear lots more about Fisher, a rising golfer at Pittsburg State and a participant one week from now at the Kansas Amateur at Hutchinson's Prairie Dunes.
I was able to get Fisher to slow down long enough over the weekend where he works 90 hours a week on his farm and when he's not sleeping, he's playing a quick nine holes at Emporia's Municipal Course.
We didn't do so hot in our US Open picks when our five International favorites didn't even make the cut. As any good sportsmen would do, we made adjustments. That is what we called it, right Bren?
Well, great minds must think alike as we did agree on who we think will be crowned the 150th champion of the greatest golf tournament ever which begins Thursday on the most famous of all golf courses, St. Andrews.
An American has won at the Old Course the last three times the British Open has been there - Tiger Woods in 2005 and 2000 and John Daly in 1995. You have to go back to 1990 the last time a non-American prevailed at St. Andrews, that was England's Nick Faldo, whose 270 was five shots better than Payne Stewart and Zimbabwe's Mark McNulty.
Only two other times in the last 50 years has an International player etched his name on the Claret Jug by winning at St. Andrews. Seve Ballesteros of Spain bested Tom Watson by two shots in 1984 and Australia's Kel Nagle was the 1960 champ.
We all know sports revolves in cycles. A new cycle is about to begin with some International flavor to it!
Justin Rose immediately comes to mind as someone who could easily be walking toward the 18th Green to a thunderous ovation from his fellow Englanders come Sunday afternoon. He's won twice on the PGA Tour in the last five weeks at the Memorial Tournament in Dublin, Ohio, and the AT&T National just outside of Philadelphia one week ago.
That win at the AT&T National earned Rose a late exemption into the Open. The 29-year-old's victory assured him of one of two places in golf's oldest Major available to the leading players, not already exempt, in a cumulative money list taken from the Tour Players Championship and the five PGA Tour events leading up to and including the AT&T.
Rose, currently the 16th ranked player in the world, is no stranger to the Open. As an amateur, he holed from 60 yards on the 72nd hole during the 1998 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale to finish tied for fourth. He will be making his ninth Open Championship appearance.
"The way that Justin Rose is playing he would have to be at the top of a lot of people's list for the British Open," Fisher said.
He has enjoyed success on the Old Course, winning the 1997 St. Andrews Links Trophy and finishing second a decade later in the 2007 Dunhill Links Championship.
"It's a place I love," Rose said of St. Andrews. "How can you not love St. Andrews? You've just got to stand on the first tee there and you feel like you're part of something special."
"However, you can't count out Rory McIlroy as he will be playing on a golf course that is the same type of course as the ones he grew up on," Fisher said. "And you can never count out the man with the plaid pants! Ian Poulter. It seems like every Major he is always in the mix by the weekend."
"St. Andrews is awesome," said Poulter, the 2010 Accenture World Match Play Champion, who finished second at Royal Birkdale in 2008. "I rank it among the top five courses I've ever played."
Poulter is listed No. 8 in the Official World Golf Ranking. He tied for 11th in the 2005 Open at St. Andrews.
"I like the fact I can put a 2-iron in the bag and work shots into certain pins, which isn't the case in most courses these days," Poulter said.
"Another that you can't count out would be the old (41 is old?) Ernie Els, another person that in my mind will be right there in the thick of things when Sunday rolls around," Fisher noted. "And last but not least I have to go with a guy that I think has a great golf swing and someday he is really going to come out and start playing well all the time, Paul Casey. He has a lot of game and is very capable of taking home the Open Championship."
Our favorite to win the Championship? You have to ask?
"Overall, though, I would have to say that Justin Rose would be my (uhh, our pick) as he has been playing really well lately," Fisher said.
There's our tag-team prediction. Come on International field! Gimme a winner and put me up 3-1 with a chance to do my victory lap in next month's PGA Championship!
Shout-outs: This week's shout goes to Bren and the other 155 golfers who will tee it up in the 100th Kansas Amateur Match Play Championship July 19-25 in Hutchinson. It is the sixth time this event has been held at the central Kansas course which hosted the US Women's Open a few years ago. Another shout this week to thinkin back what happened 20 years ago? What happened you ask? Me and two newspaper buds made a baseball trip of a lifetime. How's this for a trip:
Friday night - Royals; Saturday night - Cardinals. Then it got interesting. Monday - ChiSox; Tuesday - Detroit; Wednesday - Cleveland; Thursday - Pittsburgh; Friday - Cincinnati. Had a bratwurst in every ballpark and cherished every mile that was driven!
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