Donald and Westwood at The Open

Thought that I'd get this going as I'm sure there will be mass hijacking of threads over the next week discussing Donald and Westwood, the world number 1 and 2 respectively, having such a dismal Open.

I didn't think that Donald played awfully and was very unfortunate with his tee times being during the wind and rain on the first day and the wind on the second day. I also think that his extensive career in the US might explain why he played so poorly as his erratic driving may not be an issue when playing into receptive greens but on a links where getting out of the rough is the first objective, it just places too much pressure on your short game. Its a shame after his Scottish Open win raised expectations so high but his Open record makes for quite poor reading anyway so this should not come as a huge surprise.

Westwood on the other hand had a glorious pair of tee times with calmness and sunshine providing him with two great opportunities to shoot a good score. He also has experience around Royal St Georges, winning there as an amateur, and emphasised that he thought this gave him an edge coming into this. I thought that this was going to be his major - with the winning total not being too far from par it could have played to his big strength of consistency and the course would have protected him from someone shooting a low final round to leapfrog him again. A very mediocre short game for the world number 2 and a poor putting performance has sadly put pay to this and I almost feel that he could be on the verge of having a putting meltdown. He's now getting to the age where he knows that the clock is ticking to win a major and with the persistent media questioning when that might be at every opportunity, the cracks are beginning to show on and around the greens. He is also a fantastic iron player which can, in a backward way, have a negative effect on putting because hitting lots of greens and making lots of two putts means that you are putting a lot compared with a scrambler that gets up and down all the time.

With Poulter continuing his poor form for 2011, Harrington still hungover from his last major win, GMac continuing his trend of playing a few good holes and then throwing in a mare, Fisher seemingly forgetting how to play golf and Casy/Rose continuing with their "American media trained" ways without too much to speak of, it seems that Rory is not only Britain's most over hyped prospect but it's only prospect. Unless of course people's champion, Darren Clarke, can make it 3 majors in 13 months for Northern Ireland to celebrate?

I agree with this article apart from the fact you are bracketing Harrington as a british player which he certainly isn't.....He is IRISH

Sirbenson, well pointed out and my sincere apologies. Kept reading today about the big names missing the cut and his name kept popping up with Westwood, Donald and GMac's. It's been a long week....

Very depressing and yet somehow predictable. Mind you my 20 quid was on Rose and really anyone who made the cut is in with a shout.

sirbenson wrote:I agree with this article apart from the fact you are bracketing Harrington as a british player which he certainly isn't.....He is IRISH

As is mc ilroy,Mc dowell,Clarke etc

sharrison01 wrote:Westwood on the other hand had a glorious pair of tee times with calmness and sunshine providing him with two great opportunities...

I agree they both performed badly but to say that LW had "calmness and sunshine", particularly today is a bit simplistic. If it was that easy today, how come the scoring overall was worse than yesterday when the weather was often really nasty? The wind was in a different quarter today that was much harder regardless of the sunshine.

Agree they both failed to perform but there's an awful lot of very good players who won't be there this weekend in addition to them. Anyone within 6-8 shots has a great chance and that's pretty much the entire cut.

baboo800 wrote:As is mc ilroy,Mc dowell,Clarke etc

Ummm. Nope. Try again.

Oh please - don't bite on this obvious attempt to wind people up again

ignore the trolling and lets have some decent debate about LW and LD

No problem SH....Harrington is out of form at the minute needs to learn how to putt again.

sirbenson wrote:No problem SH....Harrington is out of form at the minute needs to learn how to putt again.

And drive!!

navyblueshorts wrote:

sharrison01 wrote:Westwood on the other hand had a glorious pair of tee times with calmness and sunshine providing him with two great opportunities...

I agree they both performed badly but to say that LW had "calmness and sunshine", particularly today is a bit simplistic. If it was that easy today, how come the scoring overall was worse than yesterday when the weather was often really nasty? The wind was in a different quarter today that was much harder regardless of the sunshine.

Agree they both failed to perform but there's an awful lot of very good players who won't be there this weekend in addition to them. Anyone within 6-8 shots has a great chance and that's pretty much the entire cut.

Yesterday Westwood had the best of the weather with an afternoon tee off and this morning was calmer than this afternoon. I may have glorified the conditions a touch but surely you got my point that had he teed off yesterday morning and this afternoon rather than the other way around then we may have been looking at a far worse pair of scores for Westwood.

An of course there were other players that appear to be too good to miss the cut. I chose to focus on the world number 1 and 2 because they are, well, the world number 1 and 2.

This article was to evoke a debate about Westwood and Donald being at the top of the world rankings and both missing the cut. It was to help protect other threads from being hijacked by a topic that is constantly brought up. Maybe you had missed both of those points in choosing to pick the bones out of my article but these are the main points nonetheless.

Very disapointed with both of them, more so Westwood as he was really sloppy all round. I'm actually starting to think the people that say they haven't got a major in them may have a point.

These things happen in golf.

Although it's probably easier to pretend that these are the first high ranked players to ever miss a cut in a major or that every time a high ranked player misses a cut in a major it spells the complete end of their career in any meaningful sense.

Yeah, I'll go with one of those, or both depending on who I'm discussing it with.

sharrison01 wrote:This article was to evoke a debate about Westwood and Donald being at the top of the world rankings and both missing the cut. It was to help protect other threads from being hijacked by a topic that is constantly brought up. Maybe you had missed both of those points in choosing to pick the bones out of my article but these are the main points nonetheless.

There you go taking offence again where none was meant or implied. They missed the cut. It happens. What's to discuss that hasn't already been gnawed over? No-one has anything new to add outside of the knee-jerk entrenched positions already doing the rounds.

Interestingly, LW was top of GIR over the first two rounds (29 of 36 I think I heard). One thing's for sure, there's not a lot wrong with his long game but I guess he needs a bit a few new ideas re. his short game.

What I find strange is that we've been saying on here for months (well, Kwini has at least) that LW's course management, in particular on par 5s, lets him down, yet he and/or the team around him don't seem to have reconised this. Yesterday's double on 8 was also highlighted at the time by the 5 Live team as poor course management. Add to that the putting, and I'd say Billy needs to give way to Fanny. Something needs to change for Lee to clear that final hurdle and a change of caddy is as good an option as any other.

Navy, I haven't taken any offence but if you don't feel like there is any discussion on the poor performances of Donald and Westwood then why bother to comment on a thread that has that as it's source?!?

Surely an experienced poster like yourself will understand that some unsuspecting poster will write a genuine thread asking what GPS is best/how to putt/what golf clothes to wear tomorrow and will have to sift through a four page debate on how Donald and Westwood can be world number 1 and 2 in the world without winning a major.

No question the home challenge has been poor, very poor, and the Westwood and Donald form going into the Open was strong enough to give us hope of a bold show, but I couldn't have Donald before the tournament due to his desperate record in Opens.
The guy now has huge experience and has only really put together one decent showing at The Open, it's no shock that he failed, the real disappointment was Westwood as like many others I felt his game was in great shape to challenge in this.
I don't buy that he had better weather, I was there Friday and it was pretty much the same at 2pm as it was at 9am as it was at 7pm, maybe a slightly stronger breeeze around lunchtime but nowhere near the strength of the winds we saw today.
He needs to get this monkey off his back soon or his chances of winning a major will disappear, but I do feel that with his game if he was to win one then he could easily pick up a few majors.
Maybe Atlanta Athletic Club will suit him, he definitely has the game for the course....

The Open has always had big names fail to make the cut. Last time at Carnoustie i'm pretty sure Woods only made the cut by one and Mickelson missed the cut and they were number one and two at the time.

Westwood has been third twice and t16 in the last three Opens. Missing one cut in an Open is indicative of nothing other than a bad tournament.