5 things You Need to Know Before the Open at Royal Birkdale
The Open Championship is back at Royal Birkdale, and every storyline runs through one man: Southport's own Tommy Fleetwood.
Video Transcript
So what's the story of the week?
James, it's The Open Championship week, and the story is everywhere here in Southport.
They call this place England's Golf Coast for a reason.
The best golf in this country is here in Merseyside.
It is the home of Tommy Fleetwood, and it's the home of The Open this week.
And Tommy Fleetwood's kind of the s- story, right?
Tommy is the story.
Every story of this Open goes through him.
Everything about this starts and ends with Tommy.
I'm getting, like, adjacent anxiety because I saw him the other day as he was leaving the Scottish Open, and it's like, "That guy is finally here."
The one week he's been waiting for, the biggest tournament of his life.
He's told everybody about it.
I'm just kind of starting to get nervous for him.
We're try- Who's gonna win it?
Well, isn't the local guy gonna win, Tommy?
Tommy Fleetwood.
Yeah, what do you think?
I've gone for Scheffler.
Wow, oh, the, the best player in the world you think is gonna win?
Tommy wins Sunday afternoon.
England wins Sunday night.
95 to one, that is the bet.
Both of those?
Yeah.
Sounds like you've made it.
Sounds like sounds like, sounds like you- we've got a punter here.
All right.
Cheers.
Thanks, fellas.
See ya.
See ya.
All right, I love it.
If you, if someone's making a mural for you, you are the prodigal son.
There have been a handful of solid golfers to come from this area.
This is one of the greatest golfing lands in the world, but he's by far the best golfer to actually make it.
Not everybody makes it.
They go off into their junior golf.
They go on to the All England Golf.
Not everyone gets to this point where there's a mural made for them.
And so there's kind of a ton of pressure, but there's a bunch of people from town who have been watching this journey.
It means a ton to these people.
All roads lead through Tommy Fleetwood.
And we're gonna play a course that he used to be a member at, the course next door to Royal Birkdale he's currently a member at.
He used to sneak onto Birkdale.
He grew up at the Southport Muni.
It's like everywhere you look, there's Tommy Fleetwood.
James, it is a clubhouse unlike any other.
And inside of it, I've been inside, it has all kinds of relics, history from Jack Nicklaus, history from Arnold Palmer, Seve, Johnny Miller.
Like, name your golf legend, there is something in there.
And honestly, the coolest one was Jordan Spieth, wasn't it?
It was Jordan Spieth.
And I feel like this whole week is kind of a reminder of the fact that history in golf happens quickly.
You get four days to change the course of your life four times a year, and that's if you're lucky.
And once it happens, it's over.
If you're Jordan Spieth, you win this golf tournament in 2017, the whole world is planning on you spending the next decade of your life as the greatest golfer alive.
Yeah.
And instead, he spent this last decade mired in the depths of a sorrow that not many professional golfers have ever known.
I mean, he's won only twice since he won that major championship here.
It seems unfathomable, but it's the way that life changes in golf.
Yeah.
The sport happens quickly.
It happens in a blink of an eye.
So if you get the chance at history, you better seize it.
I'm gonna give you one guess.
That night, I went online and I predicted how many majors Jordan Spieth would win in his career.
He had three at the time.
What do you think I guessed?
Seven.
I said 12.
He's still at three, but maybe four comes this week.
James, this funny thing happened at the Scottish Open where it felt like a lot of guys were really disappointed in how they played.
Yeah.
They go to get the links, you know, season started, and Scottie Scheffler misses the cut.
Xander Schauffele misses the cut.
Rory contended but then, like, bombed out of it on Saturday.
He's upset.
Sort of the same thing for Chris Gatorup, so I kinda wanna know who we're thinking about this week.
Man, well, you mentioned Matt Fitzpatrick yesterday, and I think that's a really good name.
But I feel like it's also a good sign that the guys are playing poorly.
I think h- having that first experience and it going not well is a reminder that links golf is not like other golf.
Yeah.
You have to play differently.
You have to be used to different things.
I mean- Look how brown it is.
Yeah.
The golf course is gonna look unlike anything we've seen from a major championship maybe in 20 years since '06 at Royal Liverpool when Tiger won on that yellow baked out golf course.
Like, that's already what we've got at all the courses in the area.
It's already what we've got at Birkdale.
I wanna highlight one thing.
If anyone's freaking out about Scottie Scheffler's first missed cut in four years, yes, he barely missed the cut.
But I'll remind you, 12 months ago, he had a horrible putting week at the Scottish Open.
Oh, yeah.
He's really never played that week- Right all that well.
And he goes to Royal Portrush a week later and wins by four or five.
I forget what he won by.
Yeah.
He was up the entire tournament.
Just because Scottie Scheffler misses a cut does not mean anything.
He's probably still my pick to win this week.
It does feel like a proper Open when you can get there by train travel, so this one's a proper Open.
And we're about to go play some golf.
Whoo.
James, it's The Open Championship, which is a UK enterprise, but this one is in England.
And it's a reminder that no Englishman has won this tournament in 34 years.
'92 was the last one, Nick Faldo at Muirfield.
But I think what's interesting is it's never been better for the English.
You've got Tommy.
You've got Justin Rose in his 40s who's basically scaring majors better than anybody right now.
You've got Matty Fitz.
You got Aaron Rai who just won a major.
It feels like they're winning everything but their Open.
I mean, when you come to places like this and you see the golf culture that exists here, you talk to the fans who know more about golf than, you know, any golf fans anywhere, it kind of boggles the mind that this area has not produced a- Yeah Open winner in the last 35 years.
I mean, that's totally crazy.
But it feels like it could be primed to change right now.
I, I think not just the players, not just the, the history of it, it just feels like we are due for a moment of change in England right now.
Yeah.
And obviously that's not just happening on the golf course.
It could also be happening on the pitch.
Matt, Matt Fitz said that he wishes that all the Englishmen will have late early tee times- so that they can stay up late on Wednesday to watch the English football team and then play early on Friday when everything is, you know, settled in.
For the Englishman winning the Open Championship, but there's an even longer drought for the English football team.
60 years without a World Cup victory.
That could come to an end on Sunday evening, which would have a weird effect on the action.
Yeah.
If England plays in the World Cup final, those tee times are getting moved up.
And it, it's kind of simmering in the background of the beginning part of Open Championship week is, like, what if?
What if you could parlay Tommy Fleetwood winning the Open and England winning the World cup?
What if England could do it all and, you know, one of their golfers could also do it all?
What's funny is now that Spain beat France, we are barreling towards something that happened two years ago, which was England and Spain in the final of the Euros.
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
And we learned that week that there's a lot of Scottish people that- that exist in the golf world, and those people want England to lose.
Get as far as they can and lose.
Now that we're in England, though, I want them to get as far as possible- Yeah and then finally get it done.
Let me tell you, if, if England advances, if the World Cup final is happening on Sunday night in this town, this bar behind us is gonna be freaking packed.
Yeah.
Guinness is gonna be hard to come by.
Yeah, this will be our North Star.
Write about the golf and then get your butt back over here.
