Three British golfers head up the official world rankings as Germany’s former no.1, Martin Kaymer drops to fourth after failing to finish in the top eight in the BMW International Open in Munich yesterday.

Following his U.S Open victory Rory McIlroy moves up to a career best third place behind Luke Donald (first) and Lee Westwood.

This is great news ahead of the 140th British Open Championship which this year is being held at the Royal St. George’s Golf Course in Sandwich in Kent, the Garden of England on the south-east coast, in two weeks time.

Rory McIlroy will go into the British Open as one of the favourites, and it will be good to see how he copes with the pressure post that fantastic display of golf at The U.S Open when he led from round 1 and never once showed a loss of concentrate or bottle as he had on the final round of the U.S Masters in April at Augusta.

The U.S Open was Rory McIlroy’s first major win after several near misses and five years of dealing with the heavy burden of expectancy and praise from many of his contemporaries and commentators alike.  Unfortunately, I think if anything the pressure is going to be greater as everyone looks to see if Rory McIlroy can begin to pull away from the rest of the field and dominate the next few years of golf in the same way as Tiger Woods had before him.

If anymore incentive was required, it has been announced that the winner’s cheque for the British Open is now £900,000 as prize-fund money increases to £5m.

Some high profile PGA players will be missing the AT&T National in the U.S to play The Scottish Open at Castle Stuart Golf Links in Inverness as a warming up for the Open Championship.  Those PGA players making the trip across the pond include Phil Mickelson, Matt Kuchar and Brandt Snedeker, who join English golfers Luke Donald, Graeme McDowell and Justin Rose.

The Barclays Scottish Open starts on Thursday 7th July with Round 1 of The Open commencing on Thursday on 14th July.

I am really looking forward to this year’s British Open and hope the heat wave continues so the top golfers in the world can do battle with each other, rather than the conditions.

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I was glued to the BBC coverage of the 2008 US Masters Open from Augusta this weekend. It was good to see Justin Rose at the top of the leaderboard after the first round (again) with joint leader Trevor Immelman on Thursday evening. And what about Ian Poulter’s sensational hole in one at the 16th?

And did anyone see the other great shot of the weekend? Brandt Snedeker chipping the ball into the holewhile on the green?

Unlike Justin Rose, Trevor Immelman had a good second round on Friday. Once again Rose was unable to sustain his good start.

As well as Trevor Immelman, I was also taken by the charm and brilliant play of the young American Brandt Snedeker. While Immelman seemed to take longer and longer deliberating over each shot, on the contrary, Brandt Snedeker took a look, took a shot, smiled and nodded as he appreciated the applause.

Tiger Woods had a shocker on Thursday and Friday and appeared to be too far behind as far as I was concerned. Tiger should never be written off but if the leaders are playing with the confidence of Immelman and Snedeker then I couldn’t see a way back for the world number 1.

By Sunday evening I was on the edge of my seat. Tiger was on the move, but Immelman looked unfazed by the pressure of being at the top of the leaderboard since Thursday. As Round 4 unravelled Tiger uncharacteristically missed several short putts which would have put him level with Trevor Immelman.

So, to the last two holes, and Immelman is ahead by eight shots and can simply coast home. That is until he finds the water and sand!

Tiger eventually only lost by three shots. That in itself is amazing. But for me, it was good to see Immelman and Snedeker as i was unfamiliar with them before this weekend. I look forward to the next major golf event.