Matteo Manassero travels to Royal Lytham while hoping to get a chance to play the British Open
Italian young star Matteo Manassero has travelled to the Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club as a second reserve, following Sweden's Robert Karlsson’s withdrawal from the British Open, scheduled to start from Thursday, July 19, 2012.
According to the reports, Karlsson did not give any solid reason behind his departure from the third major event of the year.
"Have got into some bad habits in my game and routine that I need to address. Taking a few weeks off," said the 42-year-old Swede on his Twitter account.
Karlsson made his debut in the British Open in 1989 and he has not been able to leave a good impression in the tournament since. He missed the cut 10 times and secured a top-10 position only twice in his career.
That is the reason why he will not be a player that the golf fans will miss at this year’s competition.
Ben Crane from the United States had been the first reserve, who also confirmed that he will not be appearing at The Open Championship. He was then replaced with Michael Thompson with Manassero as the second option.
Therefore, Manassero moved to Lancashire links course while hoping that he may get a late chance to tee off at the tournament.
"Travelling to Lytham right now as 2nd reserve, never know! Worst case I'll watch a bit of golf," the two-time European Tour winner said on his Twitter feed.
The 19-year-old Italian had a chance to qualify when he was contending at the Scottish Open last week. For that purpose, he also made a strong start in the opening two rounds.
However, a slumping performance on the weekend dragged him down to the share of the 36th place on the leaderboard.
The tournament officials have also announced the late adjustments to the tee-time on Thursday because of the change in the field after Karlsson’s withdrawal.
Previously, the event was scheduled to begin at 6:19 am local time. However, the new timings will be 6:30 am when Garth Mulroy, Barry Lane and James Driscoll will tee off as the first group of the day.
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