Scott out to atone for Open as McIlroy aims to arrest slide
With a handsome purse of $8.5m and $1.4m for the winner along with a bundle of world ranking points, this is one of the season’s most important tournaments, especially for Scott who will be desperate to atone for his failure at Royal Lytham.
However, the Australian isn’t the only player this week with a point to prove at Akron. There will also be considerable focus on Ireland’s Rory McIlroy who is out to third after a series of distinctly moderate performances.
Everyone seems to have a definite view as to what is going wrong with the gifted 23-year-old from Co. Down with even his good friend Graeme McDowell suggesting he is being affected by his romance with tennis star Caroline Wozniacki.
Whatever the reason, he has gone from riches to rags as the months have went by. Just check out these stats. January: Dubai Desert Classic — 5th. Abu Dhabi Championship — 2nd. February: WGC World Match Play — runner-up. Honda Classic — winner (becomes second youngest ever world number one.) WGC Cadillac — 3rd. April: Masters — 40th. Wells Fargo — 2nd. May: Tournament Players — missed cut. BMW PGA — missed cut; Memorial — missed cut. June: St Jude Classic — 7th. US Open missed cut. Irish Open — 10th. July — Open Championship — 60th.
McIlroy has now arrived in Ohio for the Bridgestone Championship for the first of eight weeks in the States culminating in the Ryder Cup in September.
That he has the capacity to emerge from this slump is a no-brainer. Anybody who swings a golf club as well as he does won’t be down for long. A good performance in Akron followed by a serious challenge for the US PGA Championship at Kiawah Island next week, would go a long way towards silencing the large number of people prepared to write him off.
The other Irish in the Bridgestone field are Graeme McDowell and Michael Hoey, leaving Padraig Harrington to prepare for Kiawah in the low key Reno Tahoe Open which carries, by American standards, a modest prize fund of $3m. Harrington misses out on Akron because he is 62nd in the world rankings but hopeful a good week in Reno will put him in the right frame of mind for a second successful tilt at the PGA. After Reno and Kiawah, Padraig takes a two-week family holiday before returning for the Barclays, the first tournament on the lucrative FedEx Cup series at Bethpage, New York, on August 23.
Interestingly, the Reno tournament is adopting a modified Stableford points system last used on the PGA Tour in the 2006 International event. It allows eight points for an albatross (or double eagle), three for an eagle, two for a birdie, zero for par, minus one for bogey and minus three for double bogey or worse.
After the massive success of the Solheim Cup at Killeen Castle, Co Meath, last year, it will be interesting to see how many watch many of Europe’s stars in the Irish Ladies Open Championship on Friday through Sunday.
The brilliant Norwegian, Suzann Pettersen, defends her title while Rebecca Codd heads the Irish challenge which also contains Lisa and Leona Maguire.
