Get in there, G-Mac! And I'll refer to you by that nickname when you win a major.
That was tough going. Amazing to think that after yesterday's excellent 66, talk was of Tiger needing to shoot a very-achievable 68 to have a chance of winning. As it turned out, had he shot a par 71, the title was his. Els left it behind, I feel. He was most comfortable with the course and conditions, and but for a mad half hour at the turn where he shot double bogey-bogey-bogey, it could have been his Open. But it was that kind of final round. Woods & Mickleson were, by normal standards, out of the running by the turn, and they continued to let putts slip by on the back nine, yet they still finished just three shots behind.
Excellent news. Does this mean he overtakes McIlroy as Ultonia's top player?
Rogins Drift wrote:
This will excite the debate, if he wins, as to whether McDowell will be the first "British" player to win this since Tony Jacklin. BBC Sports Personality of the Year, anyone?
Ha ha, you're a bad man. I wouldn't ask that too loudly around west Lancs, ain't its golf courses full of retired UDA men?
McDowell is the first mid-Atlantic-accented winner for a while.
Other SPOTY contenders:
- AP McCoy (horse-racing): should have won it already, if he hadn't been caught in a threesome with Zara Philips and Clare Balding at Sandown
- small-bore shooting four (Commonwealth games). Should be close as to whether they or the crown green bowls ladies over 60 win our only gold, holding off a strong challenge from the Friendly Islands and St Kitts & Nevis
Does this mean he overtakes McIlroy as Ultonia's top player?
Bizarrely not, in World Ranking terms, at least this morning - McIlroy remains 10th, McDowell is now 13th. That's because despite winning his last two events, McDowell hardly did a thing in 2009, apart from - and this is worth watching for future Major tipsters - finishing around 10th to 20th in all 4 of last years'.
McDowell's ranking will naturally rise higher, a bit like a lump of dough in the oven, if he keeps up with those above him from now on for the next six months, because that's the way the golf rankings work - McDowell's now 4th in points earnt for 2010 alone, behind only Els, Mickelson, and Westwood (after this US Open), and that tends to come through in the overall ranking over time.
And it goes without saying, McDowell's win, in itself, means far, far much more than the ranking. Jacklin himself was only ranked 8th in the world after his win in 1970, but as the dashing and handsome "next big thing" he was probably for a while the most famous golfer on the planet.
I wonder if McDowell's victory will now finally inspire all the other wannabe Brit major winners, like Westwood, Casey, Poulter, Donald, Rose, McIlroy, and Fisher, to pull their bloody fingers out. I'd love to see every one of them win a major in the next three years, instead of the usual procession of one-hit wonders from Tennessee with names like Calvin Crapper.
Armour became a US citizen as an adult, but he wasn't called the Silver Scot for nothing.
By closing time on the fourth round, Jacklin was a given. Had it gone to the 18 hole play off, then god knows where we'd have been. Presumably Leif Erikson would have been suggested as a precedent.
Anyway, apparently Harry Vardon won it in 1900. I had no idea he was from Jersey:
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