Looking at the history on the Open over the past five years, the interesting thing is the age of the winners. Louis Oosthuizen is the only player under 30 and an average age of the last 5 winners is 36.8.

 Don't forget that Tom Watson should have won when Stewart Cink won and Greg Norman had a great chance to win when a Padraig won his second Open, so it could have been two players winning aged in their 50's.

The evidence of experience also shows up in the past 25 years of the Open winners. If you take Tiger Woods out of the equation then 4 players over 40 have won The British Open with only 5 winners being under 30. Average age of the winners including Tiger Woods for the past 25 years is 33.12 years of age.

There is all this talk about the young stars taking over the game of golf, but the truth of the matter is that they are great golfers but they don’t win!!!

Players like Angel Cabrera, Thomas Bjorn, Jim Furyk and Retief Goosen always come out of the woodwork and perform so well in Major Championships

 It is one of only 4 events these days that you see players struggle under the pressure of trying to win a Golf Major.

Click on this link to watch some of that pressure

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3_kLTQuopg

 and Adam Scott is not on this yet!!!

The British Open is a very different major as the players must play very different shots and control their ball flight due to the fact the weather can play such a big part in deciding who plays well!!!

If the weather is windy but sunny then the better ball striker will come thru with the win, but if the weather has the combo of wind and rain, then this levels the playing field and then alot more players have the chance to win

Because of this here are my picks for 2013 British Open,

1) Ernie Els - by far and away he has the greatest record by a current player in the British Open

2) Tiger woods - Mentally he is the best (especially under pressure)

3) Thomas Bjorn - is in good form and has had some very good results in the Open

4) Henrick Stenson - is my dark horse (again very good record at the British Open and if the weather is poor could be a great chance)

I would also look at Paul Casey, Lee Westwood and Adam Scott.

Let’s hope I am right and the statistics don’t lie!!!!

What happened to Lee Janzen???

I was just looking to see how Danny Lee was going on the Web.com this week and I notice Lee Janzen was on the same score as him at 2 under. I thought to myself I haven’t heard his name for a while.  I had a look at his results over the last few years and this is what I found






PGA Tour FedEx Cup Standings                                 

2007       146

2008       144

2009       93

2010       150

2011       176

2012       161

2013       230

Now how could a double major winner start have such bad results??? Yes he is getting alittle older (49 years old), but there must be a reason for this.

So I did some research and this is the reason why??

Driving the golf ball!!!!

Over the past 7 years it has been a horror show for him; his total driving stats( Total Driving is your ranking for distance and accuracy) are as follows

2007       180th

2008       155th

2009       168th

2010       165th     

2011       87th

2012       190th     

2013       185th

which means he is hitting it short and wide off the tee!!!

Being a Professional golfer I push players to work extra hard on the areas of the game which are most important. These being 100m in and Tee shots. Around 20 to 25 % of your game is tee shots and Lee Janzen is proving the importance of being good off the tee. You can be the best putter in the world but if you are putting for  bogey or worse from  missing fairways,  you can’t play your best. 

I don’t believe there should be any excuses for being a poor driver of the ball for the simple reason that it is the only part of this game that is a constant!!!  The environment  is the same for practicing and playing ,you are always on flat ground, the tee is the same height, no other area of the game has this!!

So if you are struggling with your driving I recommend you check your driver first. Get a fitting from a Golf Professional which will check you shaft flex and swing speed, I would guess that your flex will not be correct. Second you must always go back to the basics and look at set-up, grip and posture. 9 times out of 10 the problem in your golf swing comes from poor set-up!! If you are unsure go your local PGA Professional and get checked out. Do it now!!