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There are certain golf shots hit at major championships that don't need explaining. Sarazen at the 1935 Masters. Jack Nicklaus' 1-iron at Pebble Beach in '72. Tiger's chip on the 16th at Augusta National in 2005. Mo Martin's second shot on the 18th at Royal Birkdale should make that list. Trailing late on Sunday at the Women's British Open, Martin knew she needed at least a birdie on the final hole to give herself a chance at not only her first major championship but her first ever win on the LPGA Tour. Martin did one better when her second shot rolled and rolled and rolled some more before clanking into the pin and nearly dropping for the albatross. The ball settled five feet away, and even after Martin backed off the putt once, she calmly rolled it in for her first eagle of the entire year and a round of even-par 72, the low score of the day. When Inbee Park's bunker shot came up well short to tie Martin, the 31-year-old American turned to her cadd...

I think we've all seen the spectacular views from around the cauldron grandstand  of the 18th green at Royal Liverpool golf club by now so we sent our 'inside the ropes' spy out onto the course to report on the current course conditions. What came back is that the course is maintaining a beautiful "green" look with the rough still described as "lush and penalizing". One thing for sure Hoylake will not be the hard pan burnt brown course of 2006 and driver will be required from the tee. Pictured is the par-3 9th hole looking back to the tee yesterday. The early extended forecast from the experts predict warm temperatures of 22-24 degrees C with a light NorthWesterly breeze on Thursday and Friday with an increasing chance of showers as the weekend progresses. Winds are expected to increase on Saturday and Sunday and also change to an easterly direction which make for a great test for the cut makers.  More from my spy as it comes in. Join the GolfCentralDai...

While all eyes were on Aberdeen and the Scottish Open, a surprise guest turned up at Royal Liverpool to get some early practice in. Tiger Woods worked on his game on the practice ground, did a little short game work and then took to the course for a reconnaissance mission. Related: Follow the official Royal Liverpool facebook and twitter pages. The handful of spectators who decided to spend their Saturday celeb spotting at Hoylake hit the jackpot as Tiger treated them to an impromptu exhibition. Tiger bag wasn't exactly brimming with fairway woods either, but the driver WAS in there.  He hit it exactly once in 72 holes on his way to winning in 2006 (thanks Brian Keogh). The message from the course? Write Tiger Woods off at your peril! Join the GolfCentralDaily community on Twitter for loads more comment on and off the course. Follow @golfcentraldoc GCD's 2014 Open Championship coverage is brought to in conjunction with  Speedgolf International , combining running with golf...

Tissues at the ready guys as this will come as a shock to you all that Holly Sonders , the female face of the Golf Channel, has quit and reportedly taken a job with Fox Sports. According to  reports Sonders, who appeared regularly on “Morning Drive” since 2011, could not come to an agreement on a new contract deal with the Golf Channel and was quickly snapped up by Fox Sports where she is expected to work on golf and NFL. Related: Holly Sonders Does The Ice Bucket Challenge We've had some fun with Holly over the last few years ( was that really her in those nudie pics? ) but now it looks like we'll be crying into those tissues. Join the GolfCentralDaily community on Twitter for loads more comment on and off the course. Follow @golfcentraldoc

Screw all the usual stuff that every other website has, here are my five best ever moments from the Open Championship! Join the GolfCentralDaily community on Twitter for loads more comment on and off the course.  Follow @golfcentraldoc 5. Luke Donald Gets Poxiest Bounce Ever 4. Tommy Bjorn Makes Mince Meat Of A Camera GCD's 2014 Open Championship coverage is brought to in conjunction with  Speedgolf International , combining running with golf in a new fun, fast, fitness-oriented game.  Olympic medallist Bernard Lagat took part in the last Speedgolf World Championships; you could be in the next! Make sure to check Speedgolf out on  Facebook  and  Twitter  and check out their  website here . 3. GMac Tells The BBC Reporter To Leave His Gear Alone 2. Miguel Angel Jimenez Off The Backboard 1. Peter Alliss On The Jimenez Warm Up

Looking back at my posts I noted one from the 14th October 2013 warning Rory McIlroy about the paparazzi after hearing presenters on an Irish radio station discussing how Rory  and Nadia Forde were spotted at a Dublin niteclub. Pic: Nadia instagram With the Open Championship just a week away it looks the newspapers are running with it again. The Irish Independent (I'm very surprised) described how Rory and Nadia spent an evening together in Dublin recently. According to sources, the pair were spotted looking cosy in House nightclub on Leeson St in Dublin last Saturday night, after Rory spent the day at the Dubai Duty Free Derby races at The Curragh. “They were sitting together and laughing and joking. They really didn’t care who saw them." The pair reportedly left the club together around 2am, and got into a chauffeur-driven Mercedes which was waiting outside. The following day, the pretty brunette was photographed enjoying a day out in Rory’s home town of Bangor with...

Scotty Cameron, the number one name in putting, for so long available only to the pros, has now opened his doors to the public in Willy Wonka style. Cameron told me in January he was working on his gallery in Encinitas, California, and now that it is open ordinary Joe Soap's can now get fitted by the legend and his team and peruse a range of high end putters in a boutique retail area.  There's also plenty of stocking fillers including Cameron headcovers, grips and T-shirts, branded jackets, ties and alligator shoes. A fitting will set you back $350 and last two hours. The Cameron Team plan to do three per day. And if you think for a second that this is a Scotty shop in name only, you'd be wrong.  Cameron told reporters he plans to be there "every day." The system we've developed is patented and it focuses on both the putter and the ball -- the ball is affected by the putter and the putter is affected by the player, so it's critical to see the entire pictur...

It has been a busy week for Phil Mickelson's wedges. He started the week at the Scottish Open hitting a backward flop shot , continued with a wedge shot off a cart path on Thursday that led to a birdie, and now he's hitting flop shots over a life-sized cutout of himself. The European Tour, always great with their YouTube challenges with players , brought a cutout of Mickelson for players to hit flop shots over, and they got some big names to attempt the challenge. Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, Miguel Angel Jimenez and others took their chances of clearing the Mickelson stand-in, and a lot of these guys are impressive in their own regard with the lob wedge. We won't say who hit the ball the closest, but just know it's worth watching the video to the end to see just how close the winner got to holing the shot.

No matter if Tiger Woods is leading a golf tournament by 10 shots or miles outside the cut line, viewers want to see the man. Woods brings eyeballs like no other, and next week at the British Open, your eyeballs will have the opportunity to follow each and every golf shot he hits. ESPN announced that they will have a Tiger-cam of sorts, showing all of his shots for the entire four days of British Open coverage. Here is what they had to say, via a press release: ESPN3 will offer a feed following Woods for his entire round each day he plays. If Woods does not advance to the weekend, other players will be spotlighted. It might seem like overkill to follow a man making just his second PGA Tour start since early March, but this is Tiger Woods and for the most part, we see every shot he hits anyway. The feed allows viewers a chance to "walk around" Hoylake with the man that won on this same golf course in 2006, giving you more of a feel for Tiger's round than yo...

Golf is a sport of gentlemen, but was it also so? Our discussion at breakfast on another fine morning at Royal Liverpool Golf Club centered on an old local rule that could have gotten opponents so fired up they might have needed boxing gloves rather than golf clubs. The rule is referred to in Guy B Farrar's 1933 book "The Royal Liverpool Golf Club. A History" We've all looked at a lie that an opponent has declared "unplayable", knowing that it was of course eminently hittable. This rule sorts all that out in a very practical way! The local rule states that:  "When a player declares a ball unplayable his opponent has the right to challenge, and on his adversary refusing to play it, may endeavour to take it out of the hazard.  If he succeeds in three strokes, or less, the ball should be considered playable, and the number of strokes so played by the adversary shall count to the score of the proper player of the ball; but should the adversary fail to extri...

Having had an in depth discussion from the course this morning we are of the general consensus that between 16 and 20 under par will win this year's Open Championship. Several factors have influenced the decision. 1. Weather Currently forecast to have light winds on Thursday and Friday.  With pin locations set in scorable positions the thinking is that, even though the field may well be split, a sizeable number of players will get into well into red numbers by close of play Friday.  If more showery conditions arrive as forecast at the weekend, this will serve to slow down the greens a fraction and make them more holdable in tougher pin positions. Related post: 2014 Open Championship Betting Preview and Tips 2. The Rough To say that the rough at Hoylake is thick and lush isn't really giving the whole picture.  While in places the rough is so thick it's literally a hack back out, the R&A have been careful to make the rough very playable in the right areas.  Simply ...

Most golfers see a 436-yard hole as a tough par-4 they hope to make par on. Most golfers are not Rory McIlroy. On Thursday at the Scottish Open, McIlroy opened with a sizzling 7-under 64, a course record at Royal Aberdeen and the outright lead on the first day of this championship. But that isn't why we're here. We're here because of what McIlroy did on the 13th hole. Yes, it might have been playing downwind, but that doesn't take anything away from the fact that Rory drove the green on the 436-yard par-4, an incredible smash considering most drives that travel 100 yards short of that are considered bombs. How does this compare to some other long drives by other pros? Well, it is 39 yards longer than the longest drive on the PGA Tour all year, and 55 yards longer than any drive Rory has hit this season on the PGA Tour. Rory two-putted for a birdie on the 13th after that drive, and had a little fun after his round about his incredible tee shot. Great line fro...

While 2014 has been a really disappointing season for Phil Mickelson, a refresher of what you're capable of can really turn things around. A year ago at the Scottish Open, Mickelson won in a playoff, following that up the next week with a Sunday 66 to claim his first ever British Open title and the third leg of his career Grand Slam. On Thursday at Royal Aberdeen, it was another solid day on the links for Mickelson, who posted a 3-under 68 to find himself in the hunt after day one. His round was helped when his tee shot on the par-4 13th, a hole we've already talked about this morning because of Rory McIlroy's insane drive , found the cart path, and instead of taking a drop in what could be a questionable lie, he decided to hit it off the path like he has so many times in the past. His shot landed near the pin, took a hop and then put on the breaks fast, and Phil went on to make the putt for the unexpected birdie. A year ago at Doral, Mickelson found himself in a ...

Jason Dufner continues to be a very hard guy not to like. He's laid-back, enjoys his time on and off the golf course and is doing something incredibly classy at next week's British Open. Dufner, a very proud alumni of Auburn University, is paying tribute to another member of the Auburn family who passed away on June 29. Philip Lutzenkirchen, a 23-year-old member of the 2010 Auburn football National Championship team, died last month after getting in a car accident , and Dufner is paying him tribute by putting his football number on his golf bag for the British Open. New bag patch showed up, just in time for my departure to the UK.. pic.twitter.com/Tp6Ts25Rqa â€" Jason Dufner (@JasonDufner) July 9, 2014 It's a cool move by Dufner and a special one for the whole Auburn family, and just another classy move by the 2013 PGA Championship winner. Dufner also posted a picture of he and Lutzenkirchen after news came out about the accident. Always cherish your time spe...

Hats off to Josh Gardner who whilst giving a lesson at Canyon Meadows Golf and Country Club noticed a minivan careering down the hill and vaulting into a pond. The head pro quickly instructed his pupils "to stand a bit closer to the ball and ease off that right hand a touch" before running to the water hazard and diving in to save the stricken minivan driver. “I heard a bang and then I saw it go airborne, through the air, right into the middle of the pond,” Gardner told the Calgary Sun . “He wasn’t responding so I just made the choice to go into the water,” he said. “(The minivan) started to go down, I could see the water level rising in it.” “I swam in through the driver’s side window and got his seatbelt off,” he said. “The water was coming in strong, it was up to his chest.” Gardner successfully freed the driver and managed to get him the 20 metres back to the shore. Attention then turned to the small matter of what caused the driver to decide to dr...

Fair play to Martin Dempster who was brave enough to ask Rory McIlroy about his current relationship with with Graeme McDowell given that Rors lawyers are about to give GMac and Horizon Sports Management a thorough working over in court over a contract row . Rory's camp dismissed the allegation that their lawyers dreamed up the phrase “D-Day” as some sort of derogatory term for GMac's wedding day when the lawsuit was to be filed to catch everyone off guard.  They claim it was date coincided with a “simple gap” that emerged in his busy schedule. So why not go to Graeme's wedding?  Just asking...... Here's the quote from Rory on the situation. “I am still as close to him. There’s obviously been a few things that have gone on that have strained the relationship, but I still talk to him regularly and catch up with him." “He has stayed out of everything as much as he can and there’s no ill feeling towards him in any way from my side. He’s been one of ...

Phil Mickelson will not go down as the greatest golfer ever, or even the best of his generation, but if there is a guy with a better imagination around the greens, I haven't met him. Mickelson is at Royal Aberdeen preparing for the Scottish Open this week, a tournament he won a year ago a week before his British Open victory, and was caught hitting one of those backward flop shots. It isn't the first time Phil has done this, but every single time I watch it I'm amazed. He not only got it to go behind him, but the shot turned out to be a pretty good one, settling just a few feet away from the flag. While Mickelson's season has been a disappointment thus far, he is still one of the most entertaining golfers on the planet and it's mostly for shots like this. Post by Russell Milne .   h/t Golf.com

George McNeill nearly stole The Greenbrier Classic with a final round of 61, but heartbreakingly, was unaware that his sister Michele had passed away just 20 minutes before his tee time. Michele had survived breast cancer in 2012 only for doctors to recently find a tumour had metastisized throughout her brain and established itself in her spine. She had spent the last few weeks in a wheelchair. George McNeill knew the cancer was aggressive and that his sister did not have time on her side, but he couldn't have known from the time he put his phone away to play in the final round of the Greenbrier to when he returned to the locker room, the worst possible news would come. Follow  @golfcentraldoc on twitter Perhaps it was Divine Intervention as McNeill shot a 9-under 61 â€" the lowest round of his life on Tour. Still unaware of the news McNeill was interviewed after the round revealing that his sister had been on his mind throughout the round. “It does. It's â€' yeah, y...

A head golf pro has plenty of duties that they don't teach you during your PGA training. Your life is your golf course, and that might mean giving lessons to juniors, cutting holes when your maintenance man calls in sick, and picking up range balls when nobody else is around to do it. One thing you don't expect to do is save someone who just drove their vehicle into one of your water hazards on the golf course. That scenario went down at the Canyon Meadows Golf and Country Club in Calgary, Alberta this past Saturday when head pro Josh Gardner had to act fast to save a life of someone who drove their vehicle into one of the lakes on his property. Gardner was giving a lesson when he heard a bang, and saw the minivan go airborne and land in the middle of a lake on his golf course. Gardner acted fast, jumping in to save whoever was in the sinking vehicle. According to the Calgary Sun , Gardner unbuckled the man in the driver's seat, pulled him out of the sinking car and s...

In just over a week, the best in the world will take on Royal Liverpool as the third major championship of the year will kick off across the pond. For the first time since Tiger Woods brilliantly out-thought Hoylake, this golf course will host the British Open, and Woods will be making his first major championship start of 2014 on this same track. The difference this time around is what we should expect from Tiger. Back in 2006, Woods was the favorite at every major, winning whenever he got the lead at one of the big four and dominating these championships at such a rate that some thought he could win 25 majors before he retired. Of course, things have changed, and injury has kept Woods from competing at the level he wants at some of the biggest tournaments on the schedule. That will again be the case next week, and with just one PGA Tour start under his belt following a back surgery that took place in March, a lot of people are counting out Woods' chances at Liverpool, inclu...

Remember the way Rory McIlroy used to get upset with Caroline when she took pictures of him sleeping and posted them on social media?  Well that doesn't really apply to The Dufners.  Jason and Amanda photograph and post  EVERYTHING. The latest installment on both their instagram accounts features a pictorial storyboard of their trip to Baker's Bay in The Bahamas with friends. First up is Amanda on the range in her bikini. Oh dear! This is up there with the Holly Sonders Ice Bucket Challenge video! Here's the group of happy holidaymakers. Please disregard the guy on the left who is scratching his balls! Follow @golfcentraldoc It all started off innocently at the private jet. Then Jason and Amanda went on a boat trip. Jason had a few beers! They celebrated the fourth of July! And Jason slept it off on the way back home!

The Open Championship 2014 Betting Preview And Tips, Royal Liverpool GC,Hoylake,England The Course With Hoylake having staged The Open as recently as 2006, we have a few clues as to how this famous old links will play. Where baked fairways allowed Tiger Woods the luxury of parking his driver all week eight years ago, with a wetter than average Spring it's thought driver will be a key club at this Open. Though flat compared to other Open venues, the ability to shape shots from the tee and from the fairway will be required.  Bombers will be muzzled by long lush rough where balls run off fairways, while traditional pot bunkering will ensure good course management is rewarded. Flatter than average greens complexes will most certainly mean good greens in regulation golf will be rewarded by birdie. Be sure to check out my Open Championship 2014 Long Odds shots post . Doc's Top Five To Watch Henrik Stenson 16/1 If there was ever a time that Henrik Stenson would be primed to become The...

It's unusual for any golf course to end on a par-3. The normal finishing hole is a long par-4 or even a risk-reward type of hole like the par-5 finishing hole at the BMW PGA Championship, but you don't normally see a golf tournament decided with this distance. Since the Greenbrier Classic is one of the few that concludes with a par-3, they ran a promotion this week for fans sitting around the 18th green. If a PGA Tour play knocks his tee shot in for a hole-in-one and you are in the stands on the 18th, you win a cool $100. Bud Cauley made this promotion a reality on Sunday when he hit a beautiful tee shot on the final hole that landed a few feet short, rolled out perfectly and dropped in for the hole-in-one. The fans got some cash in their pockets, Cauley closed with an eagle for a smooth final round 64 and the Greenbrier got to boast that their awesome promotion on the final hole paid off, literally.

2014 Aberdeen Assest Management Scottish Open, Royal Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland 10 Jul 2014 - 13 Jul 2014 Last week we tipped GMac to win at 11/1 Favourites With a slew of top players arriving in Scotland for this week’s Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open title, I find myself having to look down the odds a little to find some real value in the star studded field. Rory McIlroy 11/1 and Justin Rose 14/1 head the betting with defending champ Phil Mickelson at 20/1 . In total 22 players from inside the top 60 of the Official World Golf Ranking, ten Major Champions, nine former European Tour Number Ones, 94 European Tour winners and eight former Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open champions are included in the field. Doc’s Top Five To Watch Jamie Donaldson 25/1 Followed a T5 in Cologne with another T5 in Paris last week. A ball in the hazard on the 16th cost Jamie a double bogey and chance of victory at Golf National; he didn’t realize his ball was actually sitting on dr...

This past weekend saw a lot of great storylines and we are here to give you the good and the bad of it. Here are our winners and losers from the past week in golf. Winners George McNeill â€" If you haven't read the piece about McNeill's heartbreaking Sunday from Jason Sobel, make sure to do that at some point this Monday. McNeill, a 38-year-old journeyman with two career PGA Tour wins, found out before his round on Sunday that his oldest sister was most likely going to pass away from a battle with cancer at some point during his final round. McNeill went out with a heavy heart and posted a 9-under 61, nearly winning the Greenbrier with plenty on his mind. He finished in second place alone, and while the round of golf was incredible, it was a tough, tough day for McNeill, who plans to take a few weeks off to spend time with his family. Angel Cabrera â€" It was a ball-striker’s dream round by Cabrera, who was throwing darts all day long at the Greenbrier on his...

Punters take note.  Rory McIlroy has been playing a lot of links golf recently.  Last week he played the epic Royal County Down course and yesterday practiced at Royal Liverpool. This will be Rors seventh Open and apart from a low amateur T42 in 2007 and  T3 at St Andrews in 2010, his record hasn't been so good. This time could be different. He's currently 12/1 with the bookies. I've heard a lot of reports saying that Hoylake was "lush" and "green" after a wet few months but that certainly does not appear to be the case now from pictures I've seen including this one tweeted by Rory yesterday. Three weeks of relatively dry weather have really dried out the course and even in its completely preserved state pre-tournment, the fairways are starting to change to that brownish colour we associate with firm fast conditions. For sure it wont be as crusty as 2006 when Tiger didn't use a driver all week, but it might not be far off. Update 10.34am.  No soo...