Tiger Woods' plans to re-capture The Open Championship at Royal St Georges next week may be disrupted, not only by his knee injury but by the weather - again.
The World No.1 has already decided to forego his usual links course warm-up in Ireland to rest his troublesome knee after recent surgery. Now the south-coast weather along the English Channel may fore-shorten his preparations, too.
At last year's Open at Muirfield he was in contention until severe storms blew him away on the Saturday with a third round 81 - a position from which he was unable to recover to overtake Ernie Els.
He is due to fly in by private jet to nearby Manston in Kent on Monday but a quick glance at the long range weather forecast predicts that his final practice round could be halted by threatening thunder storms during Wednesday.
An onshore breeze upto 15 mph - together with showers on the opening round on Thursday could prove tricky for the early starters but by the weekend, Greg Norman's record 267 at royal St Georges score could be threatened as the wind drops to a 7mph zephyr.
Despite his injury and lack of preparation, Woods has been installed at 5/2 favourite by most bookmakers with Els 11/1 to successful ly defend the Claret Jug.
Leading European is Padraig Harrington, a 20/1 shot alongside US Masters champion Mike Weir and David Toms.
Vijay Singh is 22/1and US Open winner Jim Furyk 25/1.
Darren Clarke, who played a practice round recently and declared the course tough but in great shape, is 28/1 with Nick Faldo, second here last time and Bernhard Langer (third) both 100-1.
Here's a small selection of the odds: 5/2 Tiger Woods; 11/1 Ernie Els; 20/1 Padraig Harrington, Mike Weir, David Toms; 22/1 Vijay Singh; 25/1 Jim Furyk; 28/1 Retief Goosen, Darren Clarke, Sergio Garcia; 33/1 Davis Love, Phil Mickelson, Justin Leonard; 40/1 Nick Price, Justin Rose; 66/1 Kenny Perry, Paul Casey, Chris DiMarco, Thomas Bjorn; 80/1 Colin Montgomerie, Paul Lawrie, Phillip Price; 100/1 Nick Faldo, Fred Couples, Bernhard Langer; 125/1 Jose Maria Olazabal; 150/1 David Duval, John Daly, Lee Westwood.
Who will win? Tell us your pick and why on The Forum.
.gif)
.jpg)
