{"id":1246112,"date":"2023-07-16T12:00:13","date_gmt":"2023-07-16T12:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/golftoday.co.uk\/new-tiger-in-town-for-open-as-christensen-qualifies-in-woods-absence\/"},"modified":"2023-11-29T18:45:11","modified_gmt":"2023-11-29T18:45:11","slug":"open-championship-new-tiger-in-town-as-christensen-qualifies-in-woods-absence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/golftoday.co.uk\/open-championship-new-tiger-in-town-as-christensen-qualifies-in-woods-absence\/","title":{"rendered":"New Tiger in town for Open as Christensen qualifies in Woods\u2019 absence"},"content":{"rendered":"
Ankle surgery has ruled out 15-time major winner Tiger Woods from playing in The Open at Royal Liverpool but there will be a new Tiger in town for the week, with a German amateur carrying the name at Hoylake.<\/p>\n
Tiger Christensen came through final qualifying at West Lancashire Golf Club in Crosby, near Liverpool, earlier this month to book his major debut.<\/p>\n
But the United States-based 19-year-old accepts the similarities end with sharing the same name, country of residence and preference for an orange-and-black striped animal driver headcover.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a pretty big inspiration. To me he\u2019s the greatest of all time,\u201d said the Arizona University student<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s really special what he\u2019s done for the game, changed the entire game and made it more popular, and his achievements are just unbelievable.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something you could look up to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Referring to how he got his name he added: \u201cIt\u2019s not only named after Tiger Woods \u2013 my dad has a very good friend who\u2019s a retired boxer and his ring name was Tiger so it\u2019s 50\/50.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me it\u2019s never been (a burden) because it\u2019s just my birth name. I\u2019m glad to be called Tiger.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand everything I\u2019m ever going to do they are going to compare me to him straightaway but at the end of the day it\u2019s a different time, I don\u2019t have any connection to him. It\u2019s just a name.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI played a lot of football when I was younger and I always wanted to be a football pro until I was about 10 and then I started playing US kids tournaments and that is when I transitioned to wanting to become a golf professional,\u201d added the Hamburg-born golfer, whose world ranking is above 3,700.<\/p>\n
Christensen was the only amateur to make it through final qualifying across four venues, only three days after almost securing a place via the European Amateur Championship in Estonia.<\/p>\n
A month earlier the teenager made his DP World Tour debut with an appearance in the Porsche European Open held in the city of his birth, although rounds of 80 and 79 saw him miss the cut by some distance on 13 over.<\/p>\n
\u201cI cope with pressure pretty good, although at the DP World Tour event there was a new pressure I hadn\u2019t had in playing with spectators,\u201d he said of his imminent Open appearance.<\/p>\n
\u201cUsually in amateur events only the final couple of groups, if you are playing well, get spectators but I think the DP World Tour event really helped me going into the Open.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve now had those couple of crowd experiences, the seriousness of everyone around the tournament and how professional it is, so I think that will help me a lot.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to sound cocky but I was pretty certain of qualifying. I played the US Open qualifying and fell just short. I felt it wasn\u2019t far away.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a great experience.<\/a> I\u2019m going to go with zero expectations and take it all in.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cBut my final goal, which is supported by smaller goals, is to win as many majors as I can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Christensen was the only amateur to make it through final qualifying across four venues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1246114,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65,9051,4432,73,95],"class_list":["post-1246112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-golf-major","tag-pa-news","tag-royal-liverpool-hoylake","tag-the-open-championship","tag-tiger-woods"],"yoast_head":"\n