Adam Scott Leads The Country’s Best Into The Aussie Open

A collection of Australia’s best players will tackle Sydney’s Lakes Golf Club looking to be crowned the country’s national champion at the 2010 Australian Open.

Despite the field being predominantly Australian, there is no lack of quality teeing off on the world’s smallest continent this week.

Adam Scott is the defending champion and highest ranked player in the field, as he brings his game home in fine form.  It’s no surprise he’s the favourite with bookmakers this week.  The world’s 20th ranked player comes into his national open fresh off a win at the Singapore Open in his last start.

Including his victory two weeks ago in Singapore, Scott has two wins worldwide this year with his other triumph coming at the PGA Tour’s Texas Open.  Thus, he’s more than deserving to heading off the favourite in round one at (6-1).

Second on the betting board is, Geoff Ogilvy, Australia’s most recent major champion.  He’s ranked 43rd in the world and the 2006 US Open Champion has been solid in the second half of 2010 even though he hasn’t won since the first event of the PGA Tour season.

Ogilvy has three straight top-25’s coming into the Aussie open, including a second at the Deutsche Bank Championship in early September where he fell by 5 shots to American Charley Hoffman.  He heads into his national open coming off a 13th at the PGA’s Tour Championship and will go off at (8-1).

The bookies third choice is Stuart Appleby who tees off Thursday at (12-1).  The highlight of Appleby’s second half was a win at the PGA’s inaugural Greenbrier Classic, but he hasn’t been able to put anything together since the victory in early August.

Appleby hasn’t managed to get inside the top-50 in a single tournament since his sole victory of 2010.  His ball striking has gone severely south in the second half of the season and he finished with the lowest PGA greens in regulation ranking of his career at 185th.

Other notables.  Former top-10 player Aaron Baddeley tees off round one at (16-1), but it seems a bit of stretch to expect him to contend this week.  Baddeley had just two top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour during the 2010 season.

Worldwide fan favourite Fred Couples is in the field this week after splitting much of his 2010 schedule between the PGA and Champions (Senior) Tour in the US.  He was the Champions’ dominant player this year, but the Lakes has major championship length and it would be surprising if he contends.  The bookies are well aware of the challenge facing the 1992 Masters Champion and currently have him at (33-1).

I'm not saying my golf game went bad, but if I grew tomatoes, they'd come up sliced  - Lee Trevino