How dull is Mel Reid on radio 5

Best behaviour 4 you Terry! This isn't the cricket fred

im in the badlands here bob,look after me

comfort blanket,nice

go wake the KING

flag on 18 barely moving,i cant believe the conditions

Terry is this TIGER TIME?

looks like rory will go out in the worst conditions fri

rain/ windy 6am - 10am

a bit more on the radar now, the rain from the west looks to be dissipating at it approaches.

nae wind

The 2018 OPEN Qualifying Series begins in Australia.....


Congrats to 27yo Mexican ABRAHAM ANCER, and Aussies Dimitrios Papadatos (Central Coast NSW boy) and Jake McLeod on qualifying for the 'SOLD OUT' 148th OPEN at Royal Portrush (18th-21st July).

ANCER, a star at University of Oklahoma, did compete at Carnoustie this year – his maiden Major outing (after an impressive fourth-place at the Quickens Loan National secured him a spot), but missed the cut in Scotland.
"I’ve been on way too many flights to Europe and come home empty handed. This Open de Portugal trophy has well and truly made up for it!" after his maiden win on the European Challenge Tour last May, but Papadatos, a 3-time winner on the PGA Australasia Tour, was hit hard by disqualification in his pursuit of a 2019 European Tour card in recent weeks. 
It has been a week to remember for McLeod - he followed up a win in the NSW Open at Twin Creeks last Sunday with a third place finish to land the final qualifying place - Jake was also penalised for waiting too long for a birdie putt to drop on the fourth hole on Saturday – so McLeod had quite the week.

The next event in The OPEN Qualifying Series will be the South African Open hosted by The City of Joburg at Randpark from 6-9 December 2018.

The Top 30 in the R2D are also exempt in The OPEN.

THE ADDED BONUS this week at the 'API' - 3 PLACES available for PORTRUSH - all of the Top Ranked players will already be qualified, so that leaves valuable spots available to those who can fight out for a TOP 10 (and ties) position....worth fighting for !

A total of 46 places in The OPEN are available through 13 worldwide events in this the 5th year of the Qualifying Series, and with 130 DAYS TO GO, 93 players have currently qualified, with 63 places left to fill in the field.


https://www.theopen.com/latest/rory-mcilroy-8th-hole-royal-portrush

THE BUILD UP ! .....Oh man, I bet he thinks about nothing else (some pressure on him to preform).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIT8NK8V8iQ

No.2. is good for Tiger fans

Just 31 DAYS TO GO until The OPEN in Royal Portrush (18th-21st July).

ON Japan Tour's Mizuno Open on June 2 Yuta Ikeda qualified for next month's OPEN. The Royal Country Club in Ibaraki Prefecture north of Tokyo played to a distance of 8,016 yards in the third round, which is believed to be a record length for a sea level course on any recognized tour. HE finish at seven-under-par 281 for his 21st Japan Tour victory.

The top four finishers qualified which Ikeda will play for the eighth time, and his fifth in a row. American Chan Kim finished second, one shot behind Ikeda, and also punched his ticket to Royal Portrush. South Korean Sang-Hyun Park and Thai Gunn Charoenkul tied for third and also qualified. It will be Charoenkul's first major appearance.

Regional Qualifying begins tomorrow.....while over 100 spots in the starting field have been filled - Francesco Molinari will hope to defend the title he so brilliantly claimed at Carnoustie a year ago. Tiger Woods, Brooks Koepka and Gary Woodland – the three Major winners from this year – will have eyes on the Claret Jug, along with the usual suspects, headed up by 2014 Champion Golfer of the Year and home hero Rory McIlroy.

TOMORROW, 24th June, more than 1,000 players will battle it out for a spot at Final Qualifying across 13 venues. The field is littered with interesting storylines to keep an eye on, including a former Test cricketer and a world snooker champion. Professionals and amateurs with a handicap of scratch or better will play one round of golf in hope of advancing to the next stage. It's expected that 140 players will progress to July’s Final Qualifying, where four venues across the UK determine the 12 places – three from each venue – in the field for Royal Portrush.


County Louth, is the only Irish course to host RQ this year - as expected, the number of applications from Ireland has gone through the roof as the nation's clamour to compete at Royal Portrush - heading south to County Louth is Gary McNeill, the Club Pro at Royal Portrush. McNeill, who watched his friend Darren Clarke win The 140th Open at Royal St George’s, could play at Royal Portrush regardless of whether he qualifies. If an odd number of players make the cut, then a marker will be required to play alongside the early starter and the Dunluce Course specialist is excited at the prospect. “I haven’t played at Louth in quite a while, but we used to play the East of Ireland Championship there in the amateur days, so I do know the venue quite well,” he said. “I’m going to go there and hopefully give a reasonable account of myself. I’m ready to play if called on. “I’ve never qualified to play in the tournament itself before, but I have played in qualifying events in the past, without any success.”
Shaun Murphy – who has won more than £3m in prize money from snooker – is used to potting balls with a cue rather than hitting them with a club but his natural hand-eye coordination will serve him well at County Louth.

In the north of England, competitors will tackle Alwoodley, in Leeds, as well as West Lancashire – the county's oldest golf club – Goswick, set on the Northumberland coastline, and Fairhaven, which was first designed by five-time Champion Golfer of the Year James Braid.

In the Midlands, hopefuls will play in the shadow of Kedleston Hall as they take on Kedleston Park in Derbyshire while Northamptonshire County hosts a Regional Qualifying event for the first time since 2002. Eddie Pepperell – who finished in a tie for sixth at Carnoustie last summer – is hoping to make The 148th Open a family affair, with his brother Joe set to play at Northamptonshire County.

The south of England will see five events take place, with another historic clubhouse awaiting competitors at Burhill, in Surrey.
Wildernesse, in Kent, offers a similarly rich history, as does Sandy Lodge in Middlesex.
Southern-based golfers will face Frilford Heath, designed by JH Taylor, a former Champion Golfer of the Year who also helped lay out Royal Birkdale, and Sean Ervine, a former Zimbabwe cricket international with a healthy first-class batting average of 36.15, is playing at Frilford Heath, along with 2017 Amateur Champion Harry Ellis and Pelle Edberg – who has played in three previous Opens and finished tied 12th in 2007.
Minchinhampton in the heart of the Cotswolds, which was also a Regional Qualifying venue in 2018. A lot of attention will be on John E Morgan, the Sky Sports presenter and commentator who is set to tee it up at Minchinhampton.
OTHERS incl European Tour players Simon Khan, Richard Finch, Pablo Martin Benavides and Robert Dinwiddie will also compete, along with the marker from Carnoustie last summer in Keir McNicoll.

And, in Scotland and just a stone’s throw from Carnoustie, is Panmure, the 16th-oldest golf club in the world.

Robert MacIntyre’s rookie season on the European Tour just keeps getting better and better. Already assured of keeping his card after a series of strong results – not least back-to-back finishes in the British Masters and Made In Denmark – the Oban youngster has now punched his ticket for next month’s Open Championship at Royal Portrush. The 22-year-old secured one of the five places for players, not already exempt, within the top 20 of the 2019 Race to Dubai at the end of today’s BMW International Open in Germany.
After rallying to make the cut on Friday, MacIntyre finished in a tie for 49th at Golfclub Munchen Eichenreid in Munich. He’s now 15th on the Race To Dubai – good enough to make his major debut in Northern in just over three weeks’ time.
"I'm over the moon," MacIntyre told europeantour.com. "I thought the chance might never come up to get into The Open or a major after losing the British Amateur final but here we are.
"If I was ever to win one Major, it would be The Open Championship, I'm just going to learn from it. I played Royal Portrush for Scotland, it's an unbelievable golf course and a course I know reasonably well for an Open, it couldn't have been a better one for me."
MacIntyre brings the number of Scots qualified for this year’s championship to three, taking his place in the field alongside 1999 champion Paul Lawrie and Russell Knox.

Shaun Murphy, world snooker champion, scratch golfer, is playing in the qualifying at Co Louth (near Drogheda, Ireland).