2008 - Week 35 Winners

While Padraig Harrington (ranked 12 by Golf Predictor) was a most worthy winner of the British Open, almost all of the highest echelon of golfers were blown away by the ferocious winds around Birkdale. Only Ernie Els (ranked 4) and unsurprisingly Robert Karlsson (ranked 10) performed well and ended up in a tie for seventh. Even then, they needed strong finishes to sneak back up the leaderboard. That high finish in a major catapulted Karlsson up one whole place on the world rankings (see here)! Interestingly enough, the next tier of golfers performed very well in The Open with 8 of the golfers ranked 11-20 by Golf Predictor finishing in the top 20.

Harrington's major victory makes it 6 wins this season (so far!) by 5 different Irish golfers - surely "our" best ever year on tour.

The much maligned Kenny Perry (ranked 1) failed to capitalise on a weak field and win again on the US tour at the US Bank Championship in Milwaukee. Despite being the highest world ranked player by a country mile, Perry could only finish 6th (which is far better than Paul McGinley did in a similar situation in the St. Omer Open) in an event won by Swede, Richard S Johnson (ranked 68). Johnson capped off a fine display with an impressive wood of his own (not quite as good as Harrington's on 17 though!) to set up the winning tap-in birdie on 18. Not counting Heath Slocum, who was actually a late alternate for the British Open, we also had Joe Ogilvie, Dean Wilson and Chad Campbell in the top 6 and ties.