Open Form Guide

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The tall South African has made 19 starts in the Open Championship and his consistency is little short of staggering. He is undoubtedly frustrated that he has only one win in that time, but he has a further seven top-five finishes, another five were top-10 and in total 16 of those 19 starts were top 25 (only on debut as an amateur has he missed the cut). Quite simply there is no-one currently active in world golf who plays links golf better than Els. He was also second behind Tiger Woods at St Andrews in 2000 and is almost bound to play well again this week but the big question is 'can he win?' He has won twice this year - at Doral and Bay Hill in March - but when he had a strong sniff of victory at Pebble Beach his putting, not for the first time, let him down. When he failed to beat Todd Hamilton at Troon in 2004 Els reacted like a broken man and the suspicion remains that his confidence is yet to be rebuilt at the highest table.