Expect the unexpected as major focus turns to British Open

When it comes to the looking ahead to the British Open, the year's first two major golf championships have shown some trends - expect a long haul and prepare for an unlikely champion.

Lucas Glover, an American with only one prior victory in a lackluster PGA career, captured the US Open title on Monday at Bethpage Black, the top man from a week of heavy rain that softened greens and forced an extra-day finish.

Argentina's Angel Cabrera captured the Masters, but only after two holes of sudden death that began with the South American landing his ball behind a tree only to ricochet a saving shot off another tree and have his rivals stumble. Golf's greatest will gather again in just three weeks at Turnberry for the British Open, with the Scottish course playing host to the event for the fourth time and first since 1994 when Zimbabwe's Nick Price carried the day.

Phil Mickelson is unlikely to play at Turnberry because his wife Amy begins breast cancer treatment next week and he is taking an indefinite leave to be with his family, a comeback not expected until August at the earliest.

The world number two owns two Masters titles and a PGA Championship crown but suffered his record fifth US Open runner-up showing and second at Bethpage.

"Certainly I'm disappointed, but I've got more important things going on," said Mickelson, whose only top-10 finish in 16 British Open starts was third at Royal Troon in 2004.

World number one Tiger Woods, who missed last year's British Open with left knee surgery, has shared sixth in each of the first two majors of the year and departed Bethpage in frustration that key final-round putts would not fall.

Woods, seeking a 15th major title to move within three of the career record 18 won by Jack Nicklaus, is now without a major title for the first time in five years.

Ireland's Padraig Harrington, the two-time defending British Open champion who also won last year's PGA Championship, has struggled this year, missing the US Open cut and reaching the weekend only once in his past five US starts.

"It's hard to take anything positive out of this," he said. "I've had a bad run for the last four months but I've improved elements of my game that have been annoying me." Harrington could become just the fifth player to win the British Open title three years in a row and only the second since 1882 and that's before he seeks a PGA Championship repeat in August.

"I'm the only player walking around with two major trophies at the moment so I can't feel too bad about it," Harrington said.

Harrington's back-to-back PGA bid will come at Hazeltine, the Minnesota course that offered up a stunner in 2002 when unheralded American Rich Beem held off fast-closing Tiger Woods by a stroke.

Beem's feat denied Woods a third major crown that year and inflicting his first runner-up showing in a major.

No European player since Tony Jacklin in 1970 has won the US Open but Ross Fisher gave it a strong run, the Englishman finishing three strokes off the pace in fifth and pondering what might have been. "If I would have holed just a couple of putts, I think I could have won this comfortably," Fisher said. "I hit the ball so good, probably the best I've ever hit it in a tournament. I just couldn't hole any putts."

The strong leaderboard effort does give Fisher's confidence a boost. "Saw my name up there. I was trying to get it right up top," Fisher said. "Didn't manage it, but hopefully this will be a sign of things to come."

FARMINGDALE, New York, AFP