Roberts Streaking at the Right Time - PGA TOUR Insider


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Starting at St. Andrews this week, Loren Roberts will be playing in three consecutive major championships.
 
Jul. 13, 2010
By Vartan Kupelian, PGATOUR.COM Correspondent
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland -- Loren Roberts is looking forward to a "couple of good weeks" because he knows that here, in Scotland, there is a certain inevitability to the concept.
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"You gotta love being at St. Andrews," Roberts said after walking off the 18th green of the Old Course. "This is the place for golf. This is what's it's all about if you're a golfer."
Roberts will compete for the Claret Jug for the third time on the Old Course on this milestone occasion, the 150th Open Championship. He earned a spot in the field by virtue of his victory last year in the Senior Open Championship at Sunningdale.
He tied for seventh in 2000, his second visit, behind winner Tiger Woods. In 1995, when John Daly won, Roberts missed the cut.
The British Open is the first of three straight major championships for Roberts. Next week at Carnoustie, he'll defend the Senior Open title he won in a playoff last year against Fred Funk and Mark McNulty.
A week later, the Champions Tour returns to the United States for the Senior U.S. Open at Sahalee Country Club near Seattle.
The timing couldn't be better for Roberts. He's playing his best golf of the year at the ideal time. In his last three starts, he has finished T3, 1st, T5. The victory at the Dick's Sporting Goods Open was his first of the year.
Roberts had a similar spurt in 2009 and kept it going all the way to his second Charles Schwab Cup triumph in three years.
"Three (majors) in a row," Roberts said. "It's nice to be playing well again. Hopefully, I'll maintain some of that momentum here."
Roberts knows it will be a difficult chore to challenge the youngsters on the Old Course but he's counting on a week-off helping.
"Hopefully, the mind will be fresh," he said.
Certainly, the psyche will be excited. That's what the Old Course does to golfers. It gets the heart rate up in a hurry.
Roberts put a new driver in the bag at Dick's and it helped him into the winner's circle. The TaylorMade Super Deep model made a difference in the distance statistic.
"I haven't had a new driver go farther in a long time," Roberts said.
How long has it been?
"Since 2002 when I put the (TaylorMade) 510 in," said Roberts, who at 47 was the oldest winner on the PGA TOUR at the Valero Texas Open that year.
It was the last of his eight victories on the PGA TOUR.
The other "new" item in Roberts' arsenal is an altered approach to putting which even the Boss of the Moss finds a bit amusing.
"I'm changing my stroke a little bit this week," he said. "The greens here are so much slower. I have to play a little more break. I'm a die/lag putter. Here, I have to make a little shorter stroke and put more hit in it, more pop."
Another reason for the alteration is because, in Scotland, the preferred club from well off the green is often the putter. It is another of the inevitabilities of golf in this part of the world.