Home sweet home!

Last updated: 14th July 2010

The weather is absolutely miserable at St Andrews and few players have ventured out on the last practice day. I'm ducking for shelter after a cracking night at the Annual Golf Writers Dinner where Lee Westwood received the 'Golf Writers Player of the Year Award'.

He was very gracious in victory and also very funny. The highlight being when he looked over at PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem saying: "Please pass on my congratulations to Steve Stricker as it was nice to see an American winner on the PGA Tour."

Finchem took it well and in patriotic spirit he and I struck a friendly wager on our respective nations winning at St Andrews this week.

Looking back at the twelve Open winners at St Andrews Open since World War II the list is littered with true golfing greats.

1946 - Sam Snead 71-70-74-75=290. Snead won seven majors - three Masters, three PGAs and one British Open. His win in 1946 was his 2nd major victory.

1955 - Peter Thomson 71-68-70-72=281. Thomson's Open wins came in 1954, 1955, 1956, 1958, and 1965. He was the only man to win the tournament for three consecutive years in the 20th century. His win in 1955 was his 2nd major victory.

1957 - Bobby Locke 69-72-68-70=279. Locke's four open wins came in 1949, 1950, 1952 and 1957. 1957 was his 4th major victory.

1960 - Kel Nagle 69-67-71-71=278. Nagle was a shock winner of The Open, as he was 39 years old but had never finished in the top-10 at a major before. He has the most wins in Aussie PGA Tour history (30 more than Greg Norman).

1964 - Tony Lema 73-68-68-70=279. From 1963 through July 1966, he never missed a cut in a professional major finishing in the top ten in 8 of the 15 majors in which he played. 1964 was his only major victory as he tragically died in a plane crash in 1966 aged 32.

1970 - Jack Nicklaus 68-69-73-73=283. A man who needs no introduction was winning his eighth major in 1970.

1978 - Jack Nicklaus 71-72-69-69=281. 1978 was his 15th major victory.

1984 - Seve Ballesteros 69-68-70-69=276. He won five majors between 1979-1988, including three Opens and two Masters. 1984 was his fourth major victory.

1990 - Nick Faldo 67-65-67-71=270. He won three Opens and three Masters. 1990 was his fourth major victory.

1995 - John Daly 67-71-73-71=282. Winner of 1991 PGA, 1995 was his second major victory.

2000 - Tiger Woods 67-66-67-69=269. It was his fourth major victory and the second in the Tiger Slam of 2000-1.

2005 - Tiger Woods 66-67-71-70=274. It was his tenth major victory.

They were generally established Major winners (only Nagle and Lema were winning a major for the first time), long hitters, had or accumulated great Open records and all had great short games.

St Andrews is a tough golf course where you have to control the ball off the tee, strike the ball purely into the green. It is an advantage to hit the ball a long way as you can take out the penal fairway bunkers but it really comes down to a quality short game and successful lag putting on the big greens.

Obviously the top two players in the world fit the bill and both have their chance boosted by the historical link between the Masters and the Open.

Over the last 12 years, winners of the Open finished 1-dnp-5-2-5-dnp-40-1-3-7-5-mc at the Masters in the same year - 8 of the last 12 Open winners had a top 7 place at the US Masters.

Even the past winners at St Andrews had decent Masters records in the same year 7-18-DNP-MC-9-8-7-MC-1-60-5-1.

Why is Masters form often relevant? Well the players have to shape the ball off the tee, hit shots off different lies, use great imagination around the greens (often playing bump and runs) and putt well. It also shows they're in good form that year and can play under the highest pressure. Pressure doesn't come any greater than the Open at St Andrews!

The top finishers at this year Masters with their prices and Open form in brackets are: Mickelson 1st (20-1) (40-41-24-76-m-11-30-66-59-3-60-22-m-19) Lee Westwood 2nd (16-1) (96-m-10-62-18-64-47-m-m-4-m-31-35-67-3),Tiger Woods 4th (11-2) (68-22-24-3-7-1-25-28-4-9-1-1-12-m), KJ Choi 4th (100--1) (m-49-m-22-16-41-m-8-16-m), Nick Watney 7th (100-1) (35-27) and Y E Yang 8th (200-1).

Despite the stats I don't really fancy either Woods or Mickelson but Watney should be a good bet for Top American.

The two players who really fit the St Andrews bill, especially given the forecast of wet conditions and strong winds are three time major winners Ernie Els and Padraig Harrington.

Ernie's Open record of 11-2-10-28-24-2-3-1-18-2-34-3-4-7-8 is outstanding - he must go close after nearly winning the US Open a few weeks ago.

Harrington lives for links golf and if you add in the fact he has won the Dunhill Links Pro am twice and finished 3rd at St Andrews in 2005 he will be carrying my money.

Others with good overall St Andrews records are Bjorn, Casey, Clarke, Daly, R Fisher, Gallacher, Goosen, P Hansen, Karlsson, Kaymer, P Lawrie, McDowell, McIlroy, Poulter, Scott, Singh, Scott, Westwood and O Wilson. If you were thinking of backing any of them go for it especially with some bookmakers paying seven places.

I'll be keeping an eye on the experienced European Tour players as St Andrews is a difficult course to learn quickly and also I want Finchem to buy me a beer.