All eyes will be on Royal Lytham and St Annes this week for the 141st Open Championship, and there will be no shortage of interest from Australia. 13 of the 14 eligible Australians will take their place in the field, Jason Day withdrawing last week after wife Ellie gave birth to the couple's first child. Robert Allenby, Aaron Baddeley, Nick Cullen, Greg Chalmers, Marcus Fraser, Marc Leishman, Ashley Hall, Brendan Jones, Brad Kennedy, Geoff Ogilvy, Adam Scott, John Senden and Aaron Townsend will fly the Australian flag, Nick Cullen the most excited as he makes his major debut. Tee times and pairings for the first two rounds can be found here.
The British tabloids are famous for their harsh treatment of celebrities, and Tiger Woods is always a favourite target. However, the former world number one had the right to feel aggrieved this week after playing his first practice round at the Lytham course. Commenting on the condition of the course Woods was full of praise, but noted the wet English summer meant some areas of the rough were extremely lush and “almost unplayable”. More ...
There is no shortage of fascinating coverage of this year's Open, but one of the best pieces to appear so far is from our own Geoff Ogilvy. The 2006 US Open champion, who played the 2001 Open at Lytham, penned an excellent piece for Golf World magazine in the US which you can read here.
Locally the PGA's website has a special section dedicated to The Open at www.pga.org.au/theopen where all scores can be found as well as news of the Australian players. The official Open web site will feature video and radio coverage as well as regular updates and information throughout the week.
Before The Open action gets underway, Golfing World TV have put together an excellent look back at the top 10 moments from previous championships at the Blackpool venue. It runs 12 minutes but is well worth the effort. The video can be seen here.
Twitter, as always, will also serve as a great source of news with some suggestions below for people to follow. Naturally there are plenty more but these are some of our favourites. Dan Jenkins, Mike Clayton, Geoff Shackelford, Luke Elvy, Mark Hayes of the Herald Sun, Martin Blake of The Age, John Huggan of The Scotsman, Australian Robert Lusetich of FOX Sports in the US and of course the PGA of Australia.
FOX Sports will carry comprehensive coverage of the 141st Open Championship, much of it in prime time, over the four days. Check out our dedicated Open Championship page for TV Times
The Aussie Golfer have published an article via their blog, which is a complete guide on how to watch the The Open live online.