Hoylake, England | In the morning a Just Stop Oil protester was sent packing from the Open Championship at Royal Liverpool with the help of Billy Horschel. Looking into the third round, we could see the ARC outside after what Brian Harman said following a second-round 65 that left him at 10-under 142, five strokes from the field.
After a disappointing performance at the Masters, Harman advised the US media that he had “go home and kill a pig and a turkey”.
When a member of the press revisited the topic yesterday, Harman added to the topic by explaining that he had done a lot of research. “I’ve been a hunter my whole life,” said Harman, who was born and raised in Savannah, Georgia. “I enjoy the strategy of it. I enjoy the slaughter.”
Good news although Harman is known to hold itself to the highest possible standards in this line of business, you suspect there were a lot of people in the UK who were saying, “Well, that makes good at the time.”
Of course, none of the above should take away from what was a truly amazing tour, given the circumstances. Although player complaints on Thursday led to an R&A statement about how to sweep the bunkers in such a way as to prevent balls from going round their steep faces, the winds turned up to keep players in place. the resistance piece On Harman’s run it was the way he dropped from 8 to 10 under at the halfway point courtesy of Eagle in the 18th.
Everyone seemed interested in how South African amateur Christo Lambrecht would react to spending Thursday night in a share of the lead with Tommy Fleetwood.
With the size of the crowds, spectators could have been jealous of Lamprecht’s height of 6 feet 8 inches. However, the same was not true of the players. In fact, you had to think it was an era when Louis Oosthuizen and Jost Luiten couldn’t have been happier to be no more than 5-9 each.
Lamprecht showed how he won his last amateur championship when, after slamming balls all over the floor, his short game did everything possible to keep his score in check.
His fourth bogey 367 yards defied belief as he went to the green, he ended up with an unplayable lie on the far side of some outlying bell bushes. This is likely to be a first for the residents on the ground floor of the adjoining flats. You doubt if any golfers have ever shown their necks out of the woods.
With 79, this impressive figure fell from 5-under to 3-under, on the cut line.
Meanwhile, Fleetwood could not have made the best of his second run on a day where he was struggling. He started at the age of five, and thanks to his adoring fans, that’s how it ended.
They encouraged him every step of the way, with their cheers leading him and everyone else to start thinking of burras as birds. It’s true that he’s five years behind Harman, but assuming always that his fans don’t have any B plans for the weekend, it’s not too hard to see the Fleetwood gang setting the record straight. Meanwhile, Fleetwood signed off on his day with the words, “If you had told me at the start of the week I was in for the best game on Saturday, I would have taken it on.”
Of course, Fleetwood isn’t the only local player. Matthew Jordan, a member of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club who used to captain the junior team, is also under par 1 – tied for 11th at the halfway stage.
There are still plenty of guys in the mix, with Jordan Spieth, tied for 7th at 2 in a similar situation. Spieth, the 2017 Open Championship champion, was five-under-the-week after turning 32 before slumping with an internal 39.
It was one of the volunteers whose job it was to collect balls from the chopping green who declared that this American was ahead of the rest in his chipping from 30 yards to the inside—and that he would not bet on a three-time major winning another one of golf’s biggest titles: “Almost all of his chips were finishing within two feet of the hole. It was exciting.”
Aside from golf, the spectators had a field day at what one chap described to a colleague as “the largest pub in the world.” He was referring to the area near the 18th tee, which was delivered to heaven knowing how many thousands of revelers were enjoying a few drinks.
You wonder what members must have thought about how the course they’ve been keeping in their lane since last October has changed so much in a recent open week.
They didn’t begin to worry about the pro splits, which littered the area in front of the third tee, but there were those who admitted they weren’t overly happy about last Sunday’s Texas Scramble competition. Not all of them knew about it, and among them was the master who said it ggpSomething funny was happening, don’t you think?
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