If golf resembles a fight in any way, it is surely in the stoic absorption of incremental punishment, the pain accumulating hole by hole, round by round. The blows come from all directions: the course, the elements, a player’s own flickering self-doubt and the excellence of others.
On the first day of the Open, the most local of heroes, Tommy Fleetwood, took a load of licks from a pair of gunslingers from out of town. By the end, the 26-year-old son of Southport was shot full of holes, six over par and reeling.
Fleetwood did not need reminding that it is a quarter of a century since an Englishman won the Claret Jug: Nick Faldo at Muirfield in 1992, when he logged the last of his three on home soil, among his collection of six majors. Ian Poulter finished second in 2008, Lee Westwood did so seven years ago. But we reminded him anyway. Looking for a local hero has been tough going.
And it was rough watching Fleetwood fight his own game and the course where he and his father used to sneak in to play a few unmonitored holes – as well as the excellence of others.
The contenders alongside him only made the experience uglier: Brooks Koepka, the US Open champion who plays with the insouciance of a Las Vegas playboy but the rigour of a Detroit fighter and shot a leaderboard-topping 65, and Hideki Matsuyama, the world No2 from Japan, whose quirky, pause-at-the-top swing got him to 68. Fleetwood was driftwood, marooned 11 shots behind the mid-afternoon clubhouse leaders, Koepka and his rejuvenated compatriot Jordan Spieth.
Of course, Fleetwood was blaming neither the excellence of others nor the shifting elements that crushed his game. The faults were interior.
There was the hooked second shot into the gale at the absurdly difficult 499-yard par-four 6th, which required a scream of “fore!” to save the gallery from injury. It took stewards several minutes to persuade the inquisitive media to give him a decent sight line to the flag – and he pumped it out of the thick stuff straight across the green for one of his four regular bogeys.
A rough old shot on the 9th, when the fierce wind had dropped momentarily, was typical of his day, overcooked and the ball plugged so deep in the thick grass at the back of the green that he took a drop and six strokes for the hole.
Fleetwood, out in 38 – five behind his playing partners – continued to suffer on the way home, a longish birdie attempt slithering by at 13, one of the few looks he had all day. Koepka kept turning the screw, with his third birdie on the spin. The clubhouse was five holes away; for the American it must have seemed like a nice place to rest, but Fleetwood would have wished for a bit more room to repair the early damage.
As it happens, it got worse. He took five on 16 and six on 17. At that point there was a collision of bad karma: Spieth was telling the media all about his brilliant round, Koepka was chipping in from a bunker on the 17th for a stunning eagle, the third of the American triumvirate, Dustin Johnson, was teeing off … and Fleetwood was dragging himself to the finish for a spirit-crushing 76.
As Fleetwood saw it: “I was four over through nine. I hit one really bad shot: I put it in the bunker on three, which is poor. I had the wrong club. I hit one bad second shot into six. The rest of it was all right. On nine, I got a complete flier out of the semi-rough.”
When Fleetwood beat Johnson by a single stroke in Abu Dhabi in January he was still outside the top 100; the American would soon be world No1. When Fleetwood won the French Open this month, he entered the top 20 for the first time. So, the season has had way more ups than downs.
And he started reasonably well on Thursday, finding four of five fairways. But he steadily lost his radar to finish with a 50% strike rate. He made 56% of greens in regulation and took 31 putts. Those are not numbers that win tournaments, big or small.
It was a fascinating group, nevertheless, a trio bound by one commonality and a few differences. All three have been tutored at some point by Peter Cowen, whose expertise has helped many fine players – and currently Koepka. What a day, what a summer the big American has had.
He alluded later to breaking up in January with the footballer Becky Edwards. “It was tough to come out every day for a while,” he said. “Once I got past that and hit the reset button, my personal life, everything, seemed to become a little bit easier.
“I was eager to wake up in the morning and go to the gym and go play golf. I wasn’t like that in the beginning of the year.”
Where Fleetwood, the last mullet in town, carries his slim, wiry frame from tee to green with the demeanour of a wide-eyed youth, Koepka strides out like a bodybuilder leaving the gym. He is back in a relationship and playing golf with zest - “champing at the bit to get back”, as he described it after taking a break for fun in Vegas.
Matsuyama, meanwhile, was with a large caravan of Japanese cameramen and writers. A thoughtful and determined character, he was in his own bubble. His swing attracts nearly as much attention as once did that of Jim Furyk. It is a mystery how he holds the power of his pivot as the club reaches its zenith, pausing almost communally with the onlookers, before it is unleashed in a smooth downward assault that invariably sends the ball hurtling like a rocket in its intended direction. It is not beautiful but it is hypnotic.
They are all realists, too. While Fleetwood had cause to be miserable, his smile did not dim. Matsuyama was happy enough. Koepka wrinkled a brow when asked was this one of his great rounds. They know there will almost certainly be rain and wind on their heads on Friday. This fight is not altogether done yet.
“I’ve come back from bad rounds before,” Fleetwood said. “This weather is going to play a massive part.”
