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HOYLAKE, ENGLAND – The crowd lined up along Hoylake’s 18th fairway, three, four and five deep, chatting, sipping and craned their necks to catch a glimpse of Rory McIlroy – completely unaware that he was right behind them.
McIlroy had ducked under the ropes about 100 yards so he could make a direct route. He was aggressively chasing the pulled tee shot, which settled closer to the first lane than the 18th. One fan noticed and then another, and their heads began to turn and their feet moved, and soon they were catching up behind him, shouting his name, and he remained just ahead of them, a surfer ahead on the crest of the wave, smiling shut, nodding subtly, feet on the same ground as theirs, mind on the ball in front of them.
An Englishman of thirty turned when he realized McElroy was just a club behind him and took the elbow of his friend, who had also spun, and that friend had a beer in each hand and squirted a little beer out of the top of each one, spilled over his shirt in two spots, and broke out with a wide grin at the sight of McElroy as he walked over to his friend.
“Holy s-, that’s a legend!”
Eventually McIlroy reached his ball and punter Harry Diamond scrambled for a yard and the fans did their best to horseshoe him behind him, stretching back for a view as McIlroy waited for him to clear the green. It’s funny, a golfer waiting in a crowd. Everyone can hear everything, so no one utters a word, leaving McElroy with his own thoughts, practicing swinging a long iron though the tall grass beside his ball, and instinctively finding the bottom.
After a minute or so one spectator broke the silence.
“Tommy! “
Now the crowd was turning around again. There was Tommy Fleetwood, coming down the first lane, striding with the caddy, Ian Fiennes, nodding at the first whoop, but then coming up with another and not admitting it, kept walking, focused on the task at hand and careful to conserve the energy required to complete it.
“Let’s go Tommy!“
We polled the audience at the beginning of the week and there was no doubt about it: these are the two guys the locals used to lure, bet on, and come to see. McIlroy lives in Florida and Fleetwood lives in Dubai, but neither to Florida nor Dubai but that part of the world instead, specifically the Land of the Links, making it their home and the spectators their neighbours. McIlroy from Northern Ireland, eight hours from here. Fleetwood from Southport, an hour’s drive away. Finnis lives closer. He plays golf in West Lancashire, just 18 miles north of Howylake.
West Lancashire hosted the finalists for this year’s Championship. This is where Matthew Jordan played his way onto the field. Matthew Jordan is from here, based in the Wirral Peninsula. He plays golf at Royal Liverpool, not just this week but as his home course, making this grass a familiar sight. If fans really thought he had a chance to win, they would have included him in their pre-tournament predictions along with McIlroy and Fleetwood. But he turned heads with his opening round 69, two less than par, and spurred on by a bigger crowd than he could have expected.
It was only Friday, but Friday in the big leagues is the day of starts and finishes, so McIlroy’s run to 18th was very significant. He sat as an equal, on a knife-edge between disagreement and insignificance. Staring at the scoreboard as he waited for his playing partners to strike, looking for an extra moment at the top, he was no doubt surprised to see the HARMAN -10 five shots wide of the field. Then he turned his focus back to the task at hand, a treacherous shot downwind with a bunker bowl in the way, he hit the flop high and soft, the crowd kept quiet as the ball rose in the air as it looked as if it might have been hit. also Soft and could die a horrible death in that forward bunker, but instead she loaded enough, landed on the far side and ran out, coming to rest a few feet from the hole. The crowd erupted in applause, and as politely as can get, the applause echoed around the aluminum bleachers like a sudden rainstorm on a tin roof.
McIlroy was pleased with his two-innings total of 141 strikeouts, he said, and was thrilled to make that final birdie and go into the weekend one shot better than par. He described it as “important”. It was detonated by Harman, who was destroying the field. But McIlroy predicted that by the end of the day there would not be many people between him and this commander. He was right. Friday night’s T11 saw him in the middle of the open road, very much in the mix, and the hunt for his first major since 2014 is still very much alive.
“I think if I can get to level 3, 4, 5 lower tomorrow, I have a really good chance,” he said.
At the US Open, McIlroy was asked how it feels when he plays a key player who knows how many people want him to win.
He replied then, “Nobody wants me to win another major more than I do.” But some of these people might give him a run for his money. They love rooting for McIlroy and Fleetwood for the same reason they love attending The Open Championship: It’s familiar, it’s important, it haunts a piece of history, and it represents the best of them.
It took Matthew Jordan just 141 lashes to get through the first 36 holes, too, and he went from bland storyline to legitimate real-time contender. How did he absorb the crowds that gathered around him?
He said, “I don’t know.” “I don’t know. I think maybe I had a little support early on? And then more and more people notice that and then want to support themselves.”
Jordan’s partner Ritchie Ramsey is a Scotsman playing in his eighth Open Championship but his first in half a decade – a gap long enough to be proud of this extra tournament. He said he felt lucky to play alongside Jordan and see the stands filled and every little bunt engaged as he went by.
“The thing for me is when you see the hills, people are kind of like stomping over the hills at the top of the hills, which is really cool. this What is open,” he said.
Why such a strong turnout? Perhaps, he guessed, it’s because this region lags a bit behind when it comes to golfing in the UK.
“If you look at where we are, they miss a little bit because we have the PGA at Wentworth [closer to London]. We always have the Scottish Open and then the tournament goes north, and that’s the only tournament they come in [here]. “
Royal Birkdale and Royal Lytham are not far away. But they are not here, also. It wasn’t the event here Since 2014. And now that he’s back?
“I think you just see how special it is, where people go out and enjoy it, and when they have someone to pin their hopes on, it’s great to follow, and you have a vested interest too,” Ramsey said.
The UK band hardly stops there. A roar went up for Matthew Southgate, 34, of Southend-on-Sea, when No. 18 eagled to put 1 under, too. This is the same record set by Richard Bland and Laurie Kanter, two of LIV’s English pros, whose performances speak for themselves but also remind us of colleagues who aren’t here either, such as Ian Poulter, Paul Casey and Lee Westwood.
Keep scrolling and you’ll find Oliver Wilson of Mansfield and Jordan Smith of Bath, tied for 30th. There are the Fitzpatrick brothers, Matt and Alex, tied for 39th at 2 over par, the latter after an impressive second round 70 and the first after a miserable triple 6 at No. 17. They are joined by Tyrell Hatton, who was in contention for 35 holes but played his way out of it after 36 thanks to a double OB quadruple No. 1 8.
There’s Brandon Robinson Thompson, the 30-year-old from the Isle of Wight, who has never played a major tournament before but will now be playing the weekend in his debut – all under the watchful eye of his grandfather, who is also making his debut watching. Brandon was born in 1992, the year Nick Faldo won the Open Championship, and he remains the last Englishman to do so. As for the last Englishman to win a major? That would be Danny Willett at the 2016 Masters. And after a birdie 2 at No. 17, he made it to the weekend as well, not sparing a shot.
But it’s Fleetwood himself who’s leading the fans – as well as the field – in trying to chase Harman down. He made his way into the second round with a par of 71, scoring tight draws into the wind on a course that demanded just that. Fans hung on to see him carve out his spot at No. 18 Friday night before they began to empty the grandstands, looking to beat the evening chill, evening rain and early closing times for Hoylake pubs.
Fleetwood is an inspiration not only because of Hoylake’s geographical proximity to home but because of everything else as well. Fans want him for him because he was so close but didn’t quite get there, and because he has such an elegant, inspiring way of swinging a club, talking to fans, and going all over the world.
When asked about the crowd, Fleetwood searched for words positive enough to express his feelings, finally settling on “absolutely amazing”.
“Northwest is definitely making a name for itself with what it is,” he added. “They’ve been fantastic, and I’m excited to play against them.”
Topping the leaderboard in this tournament is gorgeously open, punctuated by the colorful flags of the United States, Austria, Australia, India, Spain and Argentina, all before you leave the top seven. But the recent winners here are Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, which means the club, fans and the Wirral Peninsula are all expecting a winner of some importance to join them. Could McIlroy’s name be a repeat? Fleetwood, chiseled for good in local lore? Jordan, an unimaginable underdog?
We’re halfway there.