Comments: Expert Picks for The Open Championship

We reach the third of four major events on the professional golf calendar and, despite assertions to the contrary, we have been blessed with one of the most entertaining and competitive campaigns in recent memory. Nearly one third of the PGA Tour event have been won by golfers claiming their first professional victories. The others have been shared by a respectable group of the game's elite as well as the sport's top rising talents. We've witnessed some amazing battles and several superior efforts, and now we try to piece it all together to determine the right plays for this week's British Open.

This season's event will be hosted by the Royal St. George's Sandwich in Kent, England, a course of tremendous history and allure. This course was the first to host the Open Championship outside of Scotland in 1894 with 13 Open Championships played on these links since. While it is one of the most respected courses in the world, it is not a regular stop for the European Tour and hasn't been involved in any professional tourney since 2003. In other words, we have almost no history to utilize in analysis of this year's field, forcing emphasis to recent momentum spiced with a bit of speculation using results from links-style courses similar in lay.

As the third major of the season, we know the field is stacked with the top talents from all over the globe. We also know weather could be as influential this week as any other we'll see this season. Neither of those scenarios present fantasy owners with optimal conditions for prognostication, but we know it will be fun to watch it all go down. Recent British Open champions include David Duval, Ernie Els, Ben Curtis (an unknown rookie back in 2003 when he won on the same set of links serving as this year's host), Todd Hamilton, Tiger Woods, Padraig Harrington, Stewart Cink, and Louis Oosthuizen.

Golfers listed in this article:

1. Luke Donald
2. Rory McIlroy
3. Martin Kaymer
4. Lee Westwood
5. Matt Kuchar
6. Nick Watney
7. Phil Mickelson
8. Charl Schwartzel
9. K.J. Choi
10. Sergio Garcia
11. Jason Day
12. Peter Hanson
13. Dustin Johnson
14. Matteo Manassero
15. Justin Rose
16. Ian Poulter
17. Paul Casey
18. Steve Stricker
19. Y.E. Yang
20. David Toms
21. Retief Goosen
22. Graeme McDowell
23. Adam Scott
24. Francesco Molinari
25. Alvaro Quiros
26. Robert Karlsson
27. Jim Furyk
28. Hunter Mahan
29. Ryan Moore
30. Zach Johnson