The good people in the coastal northwest England suburb of Southport are mad about golf, just as they are about four-or-so hours north in the Land of the Scots, just as they are a short paddle across the Irish Sea in Northern Ireland, which seven years ago, with the Royal & Ancient’s blessing, reinitiated its standing as Open Championship host territory.
This week’s Open at Royal Birkdale (est. 1889) was such a hot ticket that the R&A sold more than 300,000 of them, from an applicant pool of 1 million. “A record attendance,” R&A chief Mark Darbon woofed Wednesday at Birkdale. (And just wait until next year, at the mother of all Open venues, the Old Course at St. Andrews. The R&A opened the ticket ballot for that event nine days ago and already has received 750,000 requests.)
Given all this hysteria, you’d be forgiven for thinking that The Golf™, above all, has the singular focus of British sports-watchers this week, especially with the grass-courted grandeur of Wimbledon behind us. Alas, it does not. The Open, at least for another … oh, six hours or so and perhaps all the way through Sunday evening, will take a distant back seat to the footy. As in the football. As in el fútbol. As in the soccer. As in England’s glorious World Cup run that, after knockout-round wins against Congo, Mexico and Norway, has landed the Lions in just their just third-ever World Cup semifinal match, against Lionel Messi and Argentina.
Kickoff is Wednesday at 8 p.m. local time, at which point you won’t find so much as a wood mouse in the streets of Southport or any other English town. All eyes — by which we mean the peepers of virtually all of England’s 58 million proud residents — will be glued to BBC One as the lads seek to advance Old Blighty to its first World Cup final in 60 years. England hosted that 1966 edition, with London’s iconic Wembley Stadium home to the final; Sir Alf Ramsey’s side knocked off West Germany, 4-2, setting Britannia ablaze. Twenty-one days later, a hard-charging American named Jack Nicklaus won his first of three Claret Jugs, at Muirfield in Scotland, pocketing £2,100 for his troubles. Big Jack is 86 now, and Muirfield has been shelved, at least temporarily, from the Open rota. Time moves.
The gates at Birkdale officially close at 8 p.m. Wednesday, but the vast majority of fans will have departed well before then, motoring back to their living-room tellies or piling into Southport’s pubs, all of which have been preparing for the storm — watering holes like the Southport Tavern, with its nine TVs, beer garden and homemade meat pies; the dog-friendly Southport Coaster (buckle up!); and Platform X, which will be beaming the action on a 180-inch screen.
Also unlikely to hang around long at Birkdale on Wednesday are the English players in the field, all 21 of them. If you spot Tommy Lad, Fitzy or Rosey on the range past 7 p.m., you’ll know their swings are in a bad place — most especially, Fitzpatrick (that would be Matt), who earlier this week revealed he has “20 quid” on England to win the Jules Rimet Trophy. (“If it doesn’t come in,” Fitzpatrick pledged, “I’m not going to send a message to [English striker] Harry Kane and be like, why did you play rubbish?”)
On Monday, Fitzpatrick went so far as to playfully lobby the R&A for a late Thursday starting time so he could better enjoy the Wednesday game, which won’t end much before 11 p.m. Birkdale time. “If anyone’s listening, I really hope it’s a late/early,” he said. “It would be nice if all the English lads were late/early.”
Fitzy got his wish with a marquee 3:15 p.m. first-round tee time alongside Rory McIlroy and Xander Schauffele. Fitzpatrick’s brother, Alex, was not so fortunate; he goes off at 7:19 a.m., perhaps with his head still ringing with refrains from “Wonderwall” and “Hey Jude.” Rose also was hoping for a Thursday afternoon start but got stuck with 9:30 a.m. “I’d take a win on penalties if it happened, but obviously we’re looking for a short, sharp match and a reasonable bedtime,” he said. “I’m going to watch it with an eye on what’s important for me as well and not get too high and low and keep my own emotions in check. We’ve got big things as well to do this week, but at the same time, it’s a match where if you think that you’re not going to watch it, you’re probably kidding yourself.”
And that’s just the semis. Should England get through Argentina, they will have a Sunday date with Spain in the finals, which also is slated for an 8 p.m. start. Darbon was asked Wednesday about the possibility of moving up fourth-round tee times to give fans and players ample time to get in front of a TV for what would be, with all respect to the conclusion of the 154th playing of The Open, the day’s real main event.
“I’m an England football fan, so it would be a great problem to have,” Darbon said. “Of course in the background, we’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this. Our final putt is currently scheduled for around 6:40 on Sunday. We think that, even if we go to a three-hole playoff, we’ve got time to complete the championship. So at this stage, no plans to alter anything, but we’ll maintain that under review and finalise our position after the semifinal.”
This week marks the second consecutive men’s major at which an even bigger event (or events) has buzzed in the background. At the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills last month, the greater New York area was still drunk on the Knicks. On Thursday of that week, as the opening round got off to a foggy and subdued start, Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and the boys were parading down Broadway, about 90 miles west. Two days earlier, as the golfers had been fine-tuning their games on Shinny’s shiny links, the U.S. Open had more competition, in the form of France vs. Senegal, a group-stage World Cup match at MetLife Stadium. It’s just been that kind of summer.
The party continues with more tune-up golf Wednesday at Birkdale followed by England’s biggest football game since its last World Cup semi appearance. That came eight years ago, when the Brits lost 2-1 to Croatia, courtesy of a Mario Mandzukic goal in extra time. If England prevails this time around, The Golf™ won’t take a back seat. It’ll be tucked far away under a blanket in the boot, which Americans might better know as the trunk.
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