By Martyn Herman<\/p>\n
SOUTHPORT, England, July 18 (Reuters) \u2013 Tommy Fleetwood will hope to surf a wave of home support on Sunday to win the British Open and end the wait for an English winner of the world\u2019s oldest major that stretches back to 1992.<\/p>\n
The 35-year-old, \u200bborn down the road from Royal Birkdale in Southport, enjoyed the loudest cheers on Saturday \u200cduring a round of 69 that left him tied ninth, six shots off leader Sam Burns.<\/p>\n
He will need some magic on Sunday to get his hands on the Claret Jug and win his first major, but if he can feed off the energy of the packed galleries, \u2018Tommy Lad\u2019 has a chance.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike walking up to every green, it\u2019s like the most amazing \u200covation \u200bthat you can imagine,\u201d Ryder Cup stalwart Fleetwood, who finished second \u2060at the 2019 Open having also \u2060been runner-up at the U.S. Open the previous year, told reporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sort of acknowledge them in my way because I still want to stay in my bubble, but it just happens that there\u2019s like thousands of people in my bubble with me that are willing me on.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike there\u2019s a \u200blot of people I know out there. But I just try and be myself and I try and focus as much as I can on my game and have everybody on the journey \u2060with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ever-popular Fleetwood, who has an Academy at nearby \u2060Formby Hall Golf Club, used to sneak on to Royal Birkdale as a \u200bchild and on Saturday displayed the links course-craft that endears him to the legions of fans who clambered \u200bover the sandy dunes to roar him on.<\/p>\n
He responded with a birdie at the \u200cfifth and then rolled in a long birdie putt at the seventh to huge cheers. When he reached seven under after a stunning second shot to the 11th he was only one shot off a share of the lead.<\/p>\n
A dropped shot at the 15th stopped his charge and he dropped another at the \u206018th, although when his tricky bogey putt found the cup the ovation was thunderous.<\/p>\n
Playing partner Jon Rahm, who carded a level-par 70 to sit six shots off the lead, said the \u2018unconditional support\u2019 Fleetwood receives is inspiring.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe \u2060best part is they cheer him \u200con, but they\u2019re respectful to everybody else playing,\u201d the Spaniard said. \u201cThat\u2019s what \u2060makes it so fun for all of us.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo matter how late in the \u200bround, how \u200cbad things get, everybody is almost cheering for everybody in the group. \u200bI felt \u2060plenty of support even playing with Tommy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a lot of fun. Tomorrow if he gets going early, makes two, three birdies the first four or five holes, you can ride that wave, and everybody on the course will know where Tommy is and what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fleetwood is the leading British player on the leaderboard and is attempting to become the first English player to win the Open since Nick Faldo.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by \u200bMartyn HermanEditing by Christian Radnedge)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Martyn Herman SOUTHPORT, England, July 18 (Reuters) \u2013 Tommy Fleetwood will hope to surf a wave of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":810972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-810971","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\/810971","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=810971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}