Bjorn shoulders European hopes
After crushing defeats for Alex Cejka and Fredrik Jacobson at the hands of Vijay Singh and Chad Campbell respectively, Bjorn came from three down to beat Len Mattiace in the contest between the two players who might so easily have won the British Open and Masters this year.
Bjorn, who lost to Ben Curtis at Sandwich after being three shots clear with only four holes to play, overcame Mattiace by a four and three margin and now meets Weir in the quarter-finals.
Singh, who beat Cejka eight and seven, next plays US PGA champion Shaun Micheel, while Campbell's six and five victory earns him a crack at Curtis for a place in the last four.
Holder Ernie Els, meanwhile, will start his defence and his bid for the second biggest cheque in golf at £1m against fellow South African Tim Clark, who came from behind four times to beat Australian Stephen Leaney three and two.
Bjorn knows he cannot expect Weir to go to the turn in a four-over-par 39 or be a tournament-worst six over for 15 holes as Mattiace was in the afternoon.
"I'm playing an awfully good player one of the finest in the world," added Bjorn. "But I know my best is good enough to beat him."
Singh, second favourite to Els and envious of having a first day bye, never looked back from the time he chipped in from 30 feet at the first. He holed a 35-footer on the next, then Cejka three-putted the third and fifth to fall four down.
The gap reached five when Singh had his fourth birdie of the day on the long 12th, then six when Cejka could not match his opponent's two birdie fours to close the morning.
Singh suffered the heaviest-ever defeat in the tournament when he lost 11 and 10 to Mark O'Meara in 1998 and appeared on course to wipe that from the record books when he won the 20th with a bogey. Both missed the green but the bunkered Cejka was still not on for two and ran up a five.
When Singh two-putted the long 22nd he was eight clear and a really cruel blow came two holes later when he made a 33-footer and Cejka then missed from seven. There was no way back from that.
A disappointed Cejka, still £75,000 richer for an event he played in only because of the withdrawal of six Americans in all, stated: "If you want to beat someone like Vijay then you really have to play well and overall I didn't."
Campbell's opening was even better than Singh's. After birdies at the second and third he hit a drive and seven-iron to seven feet for an eagle on the next.
The margin became four after six, five after 10 a four-iron to three feet there and it remained that way at lunch, Campbell chipping in at the 18th after Jacobson went into the rhododendron bushes and was forced to take a penalty drop.
Jacobson needed to get going quickly on the resumption to have any chance. Instead he lost four of the first five to be nine adrift.
Campbell, runner-up in the US PGA, did make a 30-footer on the 20th and also birdied the 22nd, but Jacobson was in a ditch there and missed from under three feet at the next.
To rub salt into the wounds, Campbell holed from nearly 60 feet up the tier of the 25th green and that O'Meara record was under threat again until Jacobson made his 15-footer for a half.
The end, in fact, was some way off. Jacobson won the 27th, 29th and 30th, but he was bunkered on the next and had to hole it after his opponent pitched to two feet. He couldn't.
Clark, third in the US PGA, was behind on four separate occasions, but never by more than two and when US Open runner-up Leaney bogeyed the 26th, 27th and 28th he led for the first time.
He did not let the chance go, a birdie at the 30th, par three holes later and then 10-foot birdie putt on the next finishing his President's Cup team-mate off.
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