SOUTHPORT, England (AP) \u2014 Dan Brown is lighting it up again at the British Open.<\/p>\n
One of the few smokers in golf, Brown went through \u201cseven or eight\u201d cigarettes during his 4-under 66 that gave him the clubhouse lead midway through the first round at Royal Birkdale on Thursday.<\/p>\n
After weeks of sunshine in this northwest corner of England, the fairways here are baked and parched \u2014 making them a potential fire hazard from discarded cigarettes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been making sure that they\u2019re out,\u201d the 31-year-old Englishman said reassuringly.<\/p>\n
Not that he sounds too proud of a habit that makes him stand out on the circuit, but which he feels is needed to relieve some stress.<\/p>\n
\u201cSorry, Mum,\u201d he said with a cheeky smile.<\/p>\n
The burly and bearded Brown is an interesting character, not least because of the 10 tattoos on his body \u2014 three of which are of little birds \u2014 and his YouTube channel called \u201cBeersForeBogeys\u201d which has around 4,000 subscribers.<\/p>\n
Brown first came into widespread consciousness in golf in 2024 when, as the world No. 272, he shot a 6-under 65 for the outright first-round lead in his British Open debut at Royal Troon.<\/p>\n
His name \u2014 one he shares with the author of \u201cThe Da Vinci Code\u201d \u2014 was a headline writer\u2019s dream and his dry humor proved popular, too. Brown was tied for second place heading into the final round at Troon and wound up in a tie for 10th.<\/p>\n
That experience taught him he could compete with the best players in the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I\u2019m a better player now to what I was back then, two years ago,\u201d he said. \u201cSo we\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown arrived at the Open with no form from his first year on the PGA Tour \u2014 he missed the cut in his last four events \u2014 but has immediately taken to the Birkdale links.<\/p>\n
He made seven birdies, including three straight around the turn, after being 1 over after seven holes.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday a few putts dropped, which was nice to see,\u201d Brown said, \u201cbecause I\u2019ve not seen that for a while.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Hopefully), I\u2019m in a sort of similar area on the leaderboard come Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n
That might mean continuing to have a smoke during his rounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere might be a big drop off by Sunday if I\u2019m not allowed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP golf: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/golf<\/p>\n
Steve Douglas, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SOUTHPORT, England (AP) \u2014 Dan Brown is lighting it up again at the British Open. One of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":805961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-805960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}