Open Championship diary day two: Matt Cooper reports from Royal Liverpool

Carry On Camping

Earlier this summer my mother completed the latter stages of the Camino de Santiago, the pilgrimage that treks across Europe to the north-western Spanish city of Santiago de Compestela and the shrine of St James the Great.

It’s entirely typical that the nearest her son has ever come to undertaking such a religious crusade was during the 2021 Open when I walked nine miles from Royal St George’s to my digs via the town of Deal, my place of pilgrimage being the one-time home of the hapless Carry On actor Charles Hawtrey.

This week I remain on-trend by camping at Hoylake RFC. They’re fully aware of my plans, by the way. I haven’t just randomly pitched my tent on the 22 and hoped no-one noticed. Nonetheless, there is very much the sense that Talbot Rothwell, the Carry On franchise’s finest writer, has scripted another farce.

I’m sharing the tent with fellow journalist Nick Rodger, and after a night in the pub spent chatting to the St Andrews-based golf historian Roger McStravick and friends, we were dismayed to find Nick’s car firmly locked behind padlocked gates.

Attempts to ascend the eight-foot spike-topped barrier would have imperilled more than was worth losing but Nick’s mattress and sleeping bag were beyond so we ventured along an unlit route via the Second XI pitch, a stream and a small bridge. With every stumble, pratfall and half-witted guffaw I could hear the Carry On theme tune playing (and, indeed, I was still humming it this morning in the shower).

The fun wasn’t yet over. The sight of an electric pump uncurling and inflating the mattresses in eerie fashion at the clubhouse prompted me to gush: “Look! It’s like I’m bringing corpses back to life.” Unfortunately I was not gushing this to Nick, as I supposed, but to a terrified woman whose night-time toothbrushing I had disturbed.

Sanity was restored this morning and it does feel a little as if the tent is going to be a weather gauge for the week. For the most part, Tuesday was wet. Around the course folk were wondering to what extent it would make already-green fairways and greens more receptive and just how much more difficult the rough would become when drenched.

Meanwhile, I was fretting that our accommodation was facing a test every bit as gruelling as the new par-three 17th (click here for yesterday’s diary which dealt with that and other course issues).

The amateurs

In the last couple of years I’ve attended the most significant amateur tournaments on the schedule and I’m pretty keen to take on this week’s favourite in the top amateur market.

That man is South Africa’s Christo Lamprecht who won last month’s Amateur Championship at Hillside. Extremely tall and lean, he thrashes at the ball in a manner somewhat reminiscent of a hammer thrower and, at Hillside, he took aim at the green on every par-four below 430-yards.

He did finish up within 25 yards of all of them in the final three rounds but even his team noted that he has a boom or bust strategy, one I suspect will find more trouble in the wet rough, and more especially the bunkers of Royal Liverpool, than it did at a relatively benign Hillside.

So, who to take him on with? I spent a good part of Tuesday digging in the damp dirt.

First up was the 19-year-old Spaniard Jose Luis Ballester. Known as Josele, I knew that he hails from Castellon (like Sergio Garcia), plays at Arizona State (like Jon Rahm) and has a surname very like Seve. I also know that he earned his spot with victory in the European Amateur Championship and he did so when coping with high wind better than the rest of the field at Parnu Bay on the Baltic Sea in Estonia.

Last year he carded a 66 at Royal St George’s in the European Amateur Team Championship and he topped the strokeplay scoring in the same event last week at Royal Waterloo in Belgium.

Utilising my GCSE Spanish I headed off to speak to the Spanish press and they promptly told me to speak English. They then explained that Ballester is coached by Garcia’s father, considers Sergio to be a mentor, that he had played a practice round with Phil Mickelson, uses Joaquin Niemann’s mental coach and has just had his putting, in his words, “transformed” by a new coach in Florida.

He also has significant sporting heritage: his parents won gold in the Olympics (for hockey and swimming).

I next hooked up with Irishman Alex Maguire, who plays his golf at the linksland of Laytown and Bettystown GC and claimed his spot via a mini Order of Merit he topped by winning the St Andrews Links Trophy (he carded 64 on the Old Course) and reaching the last eight at Hillside.

It turns out that he has a neat link with Royal Liverpool. Nine years ago the Liverpool FC fan was brought over to the UK by his dad to watch his favourite team play Spurs. The match was called off and a tee time at RLGC was the replacement. The stands were not yet up for the 2014 Open, but plenty of other course furniture had been built and Maguire’s memories are vivid. He’s born and brought up on the links, he’s been playing it all year to a high standard and he seemed settled with the idea of a big week ahead of him.

Mateo Fernandez De Oliveira, the oldest of the amateurs at 23, is another with local links. He visited the club seven years ago when he was shown mementoes of his compatriot Roberto Di Vicenzo’s Hoylake win in 1967. “I was very proud,” he said. He thrashed the field in the Latin American Amateur Championship at blustery Grand Reserve GC (home of the Puerto Rico Open) to earn his spot but missed the cut in this year’s Masters and US Open (and also the Mexico Open).

Harrison Crowe is a 21-year-old Aussie who won the Asia Pacific Amateur Championship. He’s experienced at pro level down under, with 17 starts including victory in the 2022 New South Wales Open but he’s missed a lot of cuts including both times he played the linksy 13th Beach. He carded 75-77 in the Masters this year (another bonus prize when he won the APAC) but told me he learned lots of lessons that week.

That just leaved Tiger Christensen, the German 19-year-old who shot 68-67 to proceed from Final Qualifying at West Lancs. That was a contrast with the 80-79 he carded in May’s European Open.

I like Ballester and Maguire. I’ve backed the former for top amateur and the latter in his first round three-ball up against Charl Schwartzel and Rikuya Hoshino, both at 4/1.

Short game

Collin Morikawa made an excellent distinction about linksland short game in his press conference. “Creativity is the biggest thing out here,” he began, apparently set to venture along the lines of many others before him. Then he added: “But it’s also about knowing how creative you can be and not getting really stupid with it, but being able to hit your shots, flight it where you want, hit your windows, is key.”

In other words, creative decision-making.

Funnily enough that reminded me once more of Lamprecht who hit many sensational chips at Hillside but tended to attempt them all of the time. A good strategy in match play, maybe not so much this week.

What’s in a name?

Morikawa was also asked about one of this championship’s most irritating issues: its moniker.

“I definitely called it the British Open the year I won and then people gave me hate for it,” the 2021 champion said. “So then I called it The Open last year, but I played better when I called it the British Open, so I might call it the British Open.”

He concluded: “I think people understand whether you say British Open or The Open. At the end of the day, if you win it, you can call it whatever the hell you want.”

Spot on.

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Open Championship links

• Ben Coley's in-depth outright betting preview
• Specials and prop bets for the Open
• Outright Open Championship tips at-a-glance
• Expert Picks: Panellist predictions for the Open
• Player profiles: Our guide to the entire field
• Royal Liverpool hole-by-hole course guide
• Tee times for rounds one and two
• Five memorable moments from Royal Liverpool
• Matthew Jordan on home course advantage