Euro golfers not so hot -- Bookmakers

Euro golfers not so hot -- Bookmakers
John Mehaffey

AUGUSTA, April 2: Long odds offered on Lee Westwood, Colin Montgomerie or Sergio Garcia to win the US Masters this week reveal the bookmakers’ poor assessment of European chances in the first of the season’s four majors.

Yet among the other aspirants dismissed as “50-1 others” by three British betting shops lurks one of only four men to have beaten Tiger Woods after the overwhelming Masters’ favourite has led into the final round of a professional tour event.

Thomas Bjorn, a personable 30-year-old Dane, exacted full advantage from a double bogey by Woods on the final hole in the Dubai Desert Classic this month for the biggest win of his professional career. “To take Tiger on over four days and beat him just shows how strong the European tour is,” Bjorn said. “Darren Clarke did it last year and Lee Westwood did it in May.

“I need to win a major championship. There is nothing I can achieve that’s going to take my career to another level other than winning a Major. I’ve won a lot of golf tournaments and I’d Like to win America but that’s going to fulfil my career.Bjorn showed the right stuff in last year’s Majors. He finished 28th in the Masters, second in the British Open and third in the PGA. “Winning a Major championship is what’s it all about and that’s what I need to do,” Bjorn added after winning in the desert.

Otherwise prospects look bleak for the Europeans, who enjoyed a golden streak during the 1990s with victories for Nick Faldo (twice), Ian Woosnam, Bernhard Langer and Jose Maria Olazabal (twice). Briton Westwood, the European number one, will not even travel to Augusta unless his wife Laura gives birth to their first child by Tuesday.

Montgomerie has finished eighth, 11th and 19th in the last three Masters with nothing to suggest he will be a greater threat this year. After a seven-year run as European number one, the 37-year-old Scot has still to win a major. “I’ve nothing to prove in Europe,” he said. “But I’ve got to go and perform well in Majors and I look forward to doing that. Four major events in each of the next six years gives me 24 more attempts and I should contend in five of them.”

And then there is Faldo, gamely struggling against the onslaughts of time. Now 43, the man who induced fear and awe among his opponents on both sides of the Atlantic in the mid-1990s will be lucky to win a place in this year’s Ryder Cup team for the biennial battle against the United States.

Faldo no longer intimidates the Americans and will need to finish in the top 10 in the qualifying table to make the team. He is currently 20th in the points table, one behind Langer.

The Ryder Cup provides a titillating subtext to the golfing year after the controversy at Brookline two years ago when Justin Leonard’s 45-foot birdie putt rolled into the hole at the 17th green. Leonard’s team mates, their wives and caddies, celebrated prematurely by invading the green even though Olazabal was still to play a 20-footer which would have halved the hole and kept their game square. When order was finally restored Olazabal missed the putt and the American celebrations started anew.

Scott wins title
DULUTH:Marathon man Scott McCarron sliced open a finger before slicing up the field to win the $3.3 million BellSouth Classic by three strokes on Sunday.