In football terms, the language of the Liverpool galleries, Tommy Fleetwood’s five-shot deficit through 36 holes to Brian Harman at the Open Championship is not unlike his beloved Everton FC being a few goals down at halftime in a home game at Goodison Park. It’s not ideal, but it’s not ever either.
It’s been a dream start to the Open Championship for Brian Harman, and when his 15-footer for eagle rolled in on 18 after hitting his two best shots of the day, which followed two hard-fought pars on 16 and 17, it completed the dream finish … at least for 36 holes.
On Friday, after lipping out a par putt on the 10th hole, fiery Spaniard Jon Rahm unleashed a muy picante F-bomb that will reverberate around Royal Liverpool for decades to come. Ear muffs, kiddos.
It wasn’t the flat patch of land or Hoylake’s calm conditions that defined the opening 18 holes of the year’s final men’s major, but, rather, the devilish bunkers (81 overall) that litter the place.
A new legend unknowingly joined the Open Championship broadcast while hitting balls parallel to the course. He didn’t just get a moment of glory but a swing breakdown from golf great and former Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger.
The former Masters champion has played several practice rounds with Smith at Royal Liverpool and says the 29-year-old Queenslander has even more swagger than he did last year.
Adam Scott and Royal Liverpool have history. The Australian star is the only player in the 151st Open Championship field who finished in the top 10 in both the 2006 and 2014 Opens at Royal Liverpool.
Standing at 6-foot-8, South African Christo Lamprecht crushes the golf ball unlike any of the 156 players in the field. The 22-year-old leads a six-strong amateur contingent at Royal Liverpool.
The 43-year-old New Zealander was one of 13 Australasian players to earn a place in golf’s most feted major championship, yet in a heartbreaking Instagram post on May 15, he announced publicly for the first time that he had withdrawn after being diagnosed with leukaemia.
Playing in The Open is a long way to have come from the days in 2020 when he rather famously returned to his Western Australian Golf Club to work as a greenkeeper because there was nowhere for him to play.
Australian Golf Digest
