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Thursday, Jun. 17 Europeans like their chances at Pinehurst  By Larry Fine Reuters
PINEHURST, N.C. -- For three decades, the U.S. Open winner's circle has been off-limits to
Europeans, but that might change at the 99th edition of the championship starting Thursday at Pinehurst.
"I think it's motivation for every British golfer, and also European golfer to try and emulate that feat," said Briton Colin Montgomerie, the European Tour's leading money winner the last six years.
"I think it's been too long, really."
Montgomerie has come very close twice, losing in a playoff to Ernie Els in 1994 at Oakmont and finishing second by a stroke again to Els at Congressional in 1997.
Briton Nick Faldo also lost a playoff in the 1988 Open at The Country Club to Curtis Strange.
Leading candidates to end the European drought at the Open include Montgomerie, Englishman Lee Westwood and Spaniard Jose Maria Olazabal, gunning to claim the second leg of the grand slam after winning his second Masters crown in April.
Greg Norman, himself a U.S. Open playoff loser, believes Pinehurst offers a rare opportunity for a different sort of Open winner.
"You look at anybody that's got the creativity," said the Australian, a two-time British Open champion.
"Jose Maria, he comes to mind because of some of the shots he played around Augusta National, the little bump-and-run shots. So he's got the ability to do that. He's got the visualization and the imagination and creativity."
Montgomerie agrees.
"The likes of this type of course brings in a possibility of a win for a player like Olazabal, who
might not hit the ball as straight off some of the tees," Montgomerie said. "These fairways are giving him more chance to use his enormous talent around the greens and imagination, which this
will take."
Olazabal, coming off a brilliant final-round 62 in Memphis, explained the European edge.
"Up to now in Europe, the way the golf courses have been set up, it allows us to use more
imagination," said Olazabal. "We could run the ball, bounce it 20, 30 yards short of the green, run it onto the green. We could use all kinds of clubs around the greens, from a 7-iron to a sand wedge to a lob wedge.
"We play sometimes in pretty bad weather conditions, rainy and windy. And somehow, you have to have more imagination to hit those shots."
Montgomerie offered another angle.
"When it comes to having to use more imagination ... we're going from country to country and different grasses to different grasses every week," he said. "We don't have the same shot for the particular type of play."
Norman said Pinehurst's wider fairways, shorter rough along the fairways and absence of rough around the turtle-back greens brings more international players into the frame.
"It's going to be an Open that's more of an international Open," said Norman, who counts himself among the serious contenders and battled Olazabal down the stretch at Augusta.
"There's a lot of medium-iron shots into these greens, and if you miss the greens, you've got a variety of different shots, anywhere from putting with your 3-wood, to putting, to using 4-, 5-iron. Guys who grew up in Europe, and the guys who play in Australia, we've all played these type of golf courses before.
"So right now it's more of an open Open, I would call it. And it's great that the U.S. Open is that way this year."
Westwood, who comes from the Nottinghamshire town of Worksop, noted that some of his countrymen could have won the Open with a break or two.
"I think Faldo was unlucky. Monty has been unlucky," Westwood said. "It would be nice to see a European win it, especially one from Worksop." | ||||||||
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