By Art Spander
For RealClearSports
LYTHAM ST. ANNES, England - He trails the guy, Adam Scott, who uses his former swing - and his former caddie - by three shots.
He's two strokes behind Paul Lawrie, the man no one remembers won the '99 British Open - because they can't forget who lost it, Jean Van de Velde - as well as Zach Johnson and a Belgian named Nicolas Colsaerts.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
LYTHAM ST. ANNES, England -- It is a course of too many bunkers and too little room. Royal Lytham & St. Annes is squeezed between railroad tracks and brick Victorian homes, where Bobby Jones got a title, Tiger Woods got confidence and David Duval's fling with greatness reached its apogee.
Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
LYTHAM ST. ANNES, England - It is a place of history, not beauty, a links course next to Victorian homes instead of the coastline. Blackpool, Britain's idea of Coney Island, is up the road, and the Beatles' home, Liverpool, is some 30 miles to the south, another reminder of the area's proletarian setting.
Royal Lytham & St. Annes, where the 141st British Open starts Thursday, isn't much for aesthetics. The elegance comes from the test it provides and from the players in 10 previous Opens, Bobby Jones to David Duval, who conquered her.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
Special to PGA.com
LYTHAM ST. ANNES, England – In a land of royalty, we begin with The King. Not of the nation but of the country of golf, Arnold Palmer. He believed in the Open Championship, in what could be described as a sporting manifest destiny, of Americans crossing not mountains but the sea, to accept a challenge and win a championship.
Since 1922, when Walter Hagen, also given a title that would fit in Britain, “Sir Haig," there have been 89 Opens and 40 native-born American winners. That includes the last two at this year's venue, Royal Lytham & St. Annes on the Lancashire Coast -- Tom Lehman in 1996 and David Duval in 2001.
© 2012 PGA.com, the PGA of America and Turner Sports Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
LONDON – He plays the wrong game, the one, which has made him rich and famous across the ocean but is barely recognized in his home country.
“The British Olympic Giant,’’ was the title of a piece in the Sunday magazine of the Times of London. Giant in terms of height, because as everyone familiar with the NBA knows Luol Deng is 6-foot-9.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
LONDON – The tears apparently have dried, but unfortunately the streets haven’t. The Sunday Times had a front-page story on something other than the overdone hopes of Andy Murray, and it was about the weather for the upcoming Olympics.
In a word, like England’s results in soccer, grim.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
WIMBLEDON, England -- It wasn't the weight of a nation that kept Andy Murray from ending 76 years of British futility at Wimbledon, it was the unstoppable brilliance of Roger Federer.
Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
WIMBLEDON, England -- So maybe John McEnroe, as all announcers who want us to pay attention to the moment, was exaggerating a trifle.
But when someone has won all the Grand Slams except the French and is smart enough to have spent a year at Stanford, he is allowed an opinion.
Which McEnroe would give, certainly, even if not allowed.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
WIMBLEDON, England -- Think of the Mets making the World Series. Consider the Islanders getting to the Stanley Cup Final. Nothing compared to Andy Murray playing in Sunday's Wimbledon men's final. A nation turns its lonely eyes to him.
"Great Scot, a Briton in the Final,'' was the headline in the Independent. An editorial in the Times of London, the paper first published in 1785, with the headline "Magnificent Murray,'' began "Andy Murray's achievement yesterday was immense.''
Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
WIMBLEDON, England -- She leaned back and fell, tearfully, joyfully, Serena Williams on the sacred grass of Centre Court and at the same instant at the top of the tennis world.
"It's been an unbelievable journey for me,'' she would say. An unbelievable journey for anyone.
Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
WIMBLEDON, England -- In Saturday's Wimbledon women's final of contrasts, Serena Williams takes her big serve and grand history against the finesse and unfulfilled dreams of Agnieszka Radwanska.
Williams has set tournament records for aces as she tries for a fifth All England championship and 14th Grand Slam title. Radwanska, the first Pole in a Wimbledon final in 73 years (well before the Open Era), has kept opponents off balance as she kept moving toward a first major title.
Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
WIMBLEDON, England -- He contends he knows how it works. "I think,'' said Roger Federer, "I have played over 100 matches on grass now.'' That is to his advantage. And perhaps, since he will be 31 in a month, to his disadvantage.
A year ago, two years ago, in consecutive Wimbledons, he was eliminated in the quarterfinals. So watching from afar, and knowing tennis is a sport of the young - Novak Djokovic is 25, Rafael Nadal 26 - we declared Federer a dinosaur.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
WIMBLEDON, England -- Intriguing. Roger Federer might have described his Wimbledon semifinal Friday against No. 1 Novak Djokovic as important. Or critical. Or possibly a last hurrah. But he called it intriguing.
They've played 26 times, Federer, the man with the record 16 Grand Slam titles, and Djokovic, who has replaced Federer at the top of the rankings. Federer has won 14, but Djokovic has taken seven of the last eight, including three straight.
Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
WIMBLEDON, England -- Venus Williams was in the stands nervously clutching her hands. Younger sister Serena was on Centre Court grabbing a place in a Wimbledon final for a seventh time in 11 years.
"No way," was Serena's response when told of the numbers. "I was working so hard. I really wanted it."
Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
WIMBLEDON, England -- Everyone seems to have a label here. They've decided Serena Williams is the "Warrior Queen,'' and her opponent in this country with an imperial history, Victoria Azarenka, naturally is being called "Queen Victoria.''
Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
WIMBLEDON, England -- These may be the All England Championships, but we pause more than a moment on America’s birthday to offer praise for Serena Williams, an American Beauty.
Waking up the echoes and smashing home the aces, she has become last U.S. player remaining in singles.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
WIMBLEDON, England -- They call it Manic Monday here. Think of it as a tennis version of March Madness. Everyone remaining is scheduled in a fourth-rounder. The next thing you know, a favorite is defeated, and the survivors are tiptoeing to the quarterfinals.
As Serena Williams will be. As Maria Sharapova will not be.
Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to The Los Angeles Times
WIMBLEDON, England — The way Maria Sharapova was talking, discussing her French Open victory last month as opposed to her Wimbledon loss Monday ("I'll have that for the rest of my career"), it was easy to think of the film "Casablanca."
"We'll always have Paris," Humphrey Bogart says in that familiar line. So will Sharapova.
Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
WIMBLEDON, England -- It happened three days ago to Rafael Nadal. It almost happened two days ago to Roger Federer. It seemed to be happening Saturday to Serena Williams, a star losing to a lower-ranked opponent on the All England Tennis Club's Centre Court.
Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
WIMBLEDON, England -- The great ones manage to find a way, which in part is the reason they are great. Roger Federer seemed destined to follow Rafael Nadal out of Wimbledon in this unpredictable first week but instead remains a factor and one of the favorites.
Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved.