Updates from the course ahead of Open Championship at Royal St George's

Bad barracking

As mentioned yesterday, the huge dune behind the sixth green is a superb vantage point and it was packed all day. In the morning the galleries were treated to a stunning show from the three-ball of Stewart Cink, Martin Kaymer and Lee Westwood.

Cink went first at the 176-yard par-three and left his ball six feet behind the flag, Kaymer responded with a blow to four feet, and Westwood bested them both, hitting to tap-in range.

Curiously (perhaps folk were still getting used to the old normal) the gallery clapped them onto the green, but it wasn’t especially loud or effusive noise. And when the polite applause turned to quiet an Australian voice shouted out a heckle.

We might have hoped for something reminiscent of the great Yabba, the barracker who sat on The Hill at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Among his best lines were: "I wish you were a statue and I were a pigeon", "Leave our flies alone, Jardine", and, when an English batsman re-arranged his box, "Those are the only balls you’ve touched all day."

Alas, this modern day Yabba shouted "You three should be professionals" and he was even losing heart himself before he’d finished the sentence. Worse, it was met with complete silence, eventually broken by Kaymer’s caddie Craig Connolly who retorted: "And you should be a comedian."

Earwigging 1

Min Woo Lee’s chat to the media went along the lines you’d expect after a four-over-par 74. Last week’s winner of the Scottish Open was making his major championship debut so was understandably keen to emphasise whatever positives he could.

"Hopefully I’ll play well tomorrow," he said. "I've got not too much pressure on my back and it was very nice to get that win. I'm just going to go out there tomorrow and try to make a lot of birdies."

So far, so normal, only for two Australians to ask a couple extra questions, not recorded by the official media service, which maybe revealed his true feelings. "Just mentally exhausted," he said. "I’ll warm down, but I’m not going to the range. I’m so tired after last week."

"So you’re pretty dispirited?" he was asked. His response did not include the words "No sh*t Sherlock", but his body language said as much in as polite a way as he could manage.

With a good chance that he remains a little frazzled, plus the possibility that gunning for birdies leads him in the wrong direction, I’m playing with the idea of taking him on in his second round three-ball. His playing partners Sam Horsfield and Christiaan Bezuidenhout carded level-par and two-under respectively in round one.

Earwigging 2

After hitting just four of 14 fairways Bryson DeChambeau didn’t hold back when talking in the mixed zone.

"The driver sucks," he said. "It's not a good face for me and we're still trying to figure out how to make it good on the mis-hits. I'm living on the razor's edge like I've told people for a long time." He later added: "It's literally the physics and the way that they build heads now. It's not the right design, unfortunately."

Later in the day USA Today quoted Cobra Tour Operations Manager Ben Schomin as responding with: "Everybody is bending over backwards. We’ve got multiple guys in R&D who are CAD’ing (computer-aided design) this and CAD-ing that, trying to get this and that into the pipeline faster. He knows it. He has never really been happy, ever. Like, it’s very rare where he’s happy."

DeChambeau uses a Cobra Radspeed driver, made specifically for him, but maybe not tomorrow. I wasn’t present at the post-round interview, but I was standing near where DeChambeau emerged with his caddie and a helper. The latter split from them, saying: "I’ll go and get the driver heads." Then DeChambeau shouted after him: "And get some LTDs" which is a regular driver designed by Cobra.

Swag

There are only four American journalists in the media centre this week, down from the usual number which is in excess of 50.

That downturn in numbers is reflected in the galleries and an unexpected consequence of that is a lack of demand for marshals clothing – something of a thriving black market scene in the past.

It’s a rum business, one I was clueless about until I wondered why so many marshals were hastily shedding hats and jackets after play on a Sunday one year. Turns out certain wealthy US visitors will spend the week muttering advances out the side of their mouth – and then exchange a fistful of tenners for the logo’d booty soon after the final putt is holed.

More on the blagger

Earlier this week I told the story of the man who, at the 1985 Open, wore a backpack and carried a boom mike in order to get himself inside the ropes during the final round. It’s a story that Sandy Lyle himself tells in this Golf TV video released today (from 2:00).

It turns out, however, that the story is rather more complicated than even Lyle remembers, as revealed by Nic Brook who emailed me when he read it in these pages. Brook was working for Golf Illustrated in 1985 and attending his first Open as a journalist.

He explains that the blagger had nicked the boom mike from the back of one of the greens (it had been noted that it had gone missing on the morning of the final day). He also had a normal rucksack, but crucially with a tent pole sticking out of it, pretending to look like authentic broadcasting kit.

He actually followed the final group of David Graham and Bernhard Langer, but melted back into the gallery halfway up 18. Golf Illustrated even ran a photo of him crossing the 'Suez Canal' bridge on the 14th, two paces behind Graham.

Brook’s Open adventures were not over. Three years later he was behind Seve Ballesteros when he nearly chipped in at the final hole on his way to winning at Royal Lytham. In the famous photo of the great man clenching his fist in celebration, there is a young Brook, in dark glasses, gasping at the Spaniard’s audacious brilliance.

Operation Private Widdle

I first learned that Carry On star Charles Hawtrey had lived in nearby Deal during the 2011 Open and had been keen to visit his old house. It only took me 10 years, but I finally got there last night.

I walked across the course to the beach exit, tramped across nearby Royal Cinque Ports GC (often an Open Qualifying venue), and then on into Deal. Hawtrey’s house is said to be an old smuggler’s cottage, but struck me as rather smarter than that. Around the corner I found the Royal Hotel, where he collapsed shortly before dying in 1988. Poor old Charlie Muggins.

Underdog

The night ended with a stroll along the beach to my campsite, the gentle swish of the English Channel on the pebbles interrupted by the unlikely sound of a man shouting: "Seve. Seve! Seve!! Seve!!! Seve!!!! SEVE!!!!!"

It had more than a touch of Fenton about it, albeit without the desperation, and it was indeed an owner in search of his dog.

I ventured: :"Is he named after-"

"The greatest golfer who ever lived?" the owner said. "Of course!"

I was a little underwhelmed, however, to discover than Seve was a little terrier type thing. It didn’t really feel like a natural fit at all and in fact rather absurd.