Daniel Brown hits out of a bunker on Friday on the 1st hole at Royal Troon.
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TROON, Scotland — What you want to know, of course, is whether “this guy,”* this Dan Brown, can win this thing, this 152nd British Open, here at Royal Troon. No, not Da Vinci Code Dan Brown. He’s not in the field. Dan Brown the English golfer.
Yes, of course he can.
Todd Hamilton won this tournament, on this course, in 2004, beating a lion of the game, Ernie Els, in a playoff to do it. Before winning golf’s oldest tournament, Todd Hamilton was a Tour winner but wasn’t exactly a household name, at least not beyond the Hamilton home in the small Illinois town of Oquawka.
One year earlier, at Royal St. George’s, another unheralded son of the Midwest, Ben Curtis from Kent, Ohio, won the 2003 British Open.
So, what is to prevent Dan Brown, the best golfer in Northallerton, in North Yorkshire, from doing the same? If England has a Midwest — broadly unpretentious, largely rural — it is North Yorkshire. Dan Brown’s father is in the pig business, if you’re looking for a farm touch here. But the Brown family, per Dan Brown’s caddie-brother, is not big on the hog, and their mother, a mortgage advisor and the family cook, doesn’t serve much of it.
Louis Oosthuizen, winner of the 2010 Open at St. Andrews, grew up on a dairy farm in South Africa, if you’re looking for anything more on this odd diversion.
Anyway, Dan Brown, with a good weekend here at Royal Troon, can get his name on the Claret Jug. And if not, he can play his way into all manner of events by which he can become something more than a tall man with a short name.
The 36-hole leader is Shane Lowry of Ireland, who is seven-under par. His two closest chasers are both Englishmen, the veteran Justin Rose and “this guy* Daniel Brown,” as Lowry casually referred to him while talking to reporters on Friday. “I’ve never played with him, but obviously he had a great day yesterday and looks to be going all right today.”
Yes and yes. Dan Brown had an opening 65, six under and the day’s low score, and he came in on Friday with 72. He caught the worse of the draw. He and Lowry will be in the day’s final twosome on Saturday.
Brown watched on TV when Lowry won the Open in 2019. He loves to watch the Open, and now he is playing one for the first time. His first time in any major. He was impressed, he said on Friday, by Lowry’s “grit and determination, which he always seems to have. Hopefully I’ll get to witness that firsthand tomorrow and try and hopefully go toe-to-toe with him.”
Brown is 29 and he won last year on the DP World Tour. He’s a big, strong kid with a beard and a tan and a laid-back manner. He carries a Ping bag loaded with Ping clubs, and on the back nine on Friday, in addition to his parents, he had two other fans with a particular rooting interest, Ian Walker, a Troon member and a longtime Ping executive, and John Solheim, the son of Karsten Solheim, who founded Ping.
“I think I’m more nervous than he is,” Walker said. “He’s got to be living out a dream here.”
Brown played the Thursday-Friday rounds with two other good young players, Denwit Boriboonsub, a 20-year-old pro from Thailand, and Matthew Dodd-Berry, an English amateur who plays at LSU. Professional golf has never been this young, or this global. The Open shows that as much as any tournament. Then again, Justin Rose is 43.
Dan Brown was asked on Friday if he knew the names Ben Curtis and Todd Hamilton. He did.
“Were they first-time winners?” he said. “We’ll see, we’ll see. I’m not going to say too much.”
Ben Curtis was playing in his first major, just as Brown is, when he won. Todd Hamilton was a journeyman pro who played the world with significant success when he won. Ben Curtis has not played tournament golf in years. Hamilton played here, his 40th major. He missed the cut, and his win 20 years ago here is his only top-10 finish in a Grand Slam event. Golf defies logic, but logic helps.
Brown is nothing if not grounded. When he finished his round on Friday he started walking to the recorder’s trailer, said aloud, “Oh, the scorers,” made a U-turn and shook hands with the kids who followed his group around on Friday, one with a rake in hand, the other carrying a sign with the scores.
“I’m a bit of a realist,” Brown said on Friday, in his earthbound way. “I’m not going to start getting ahead of myself and thinking that, ‘Oh, my God, I’m leading the Open, I’m second in The Open,’ or whatever. There are still 36 holes left. I might have a good round tomorrow and then I might have a stinky round on Sunday. You just don’t know.”
Michael Bamberger writes for GOLF Magazine and GOLF.com. Before that, he spent nearly 23 years as senior writer for Sports Illustrated. After college, he worked as a newspaper reporter, first for the (Martha’s) Vineyard Gazette, later for The Philadelphia Inquirer. He has written a variety of books about golf and other subjects, the most recent of which is The Second Life of Tiger Woods. His magazine work has been featured in multiple editions of The Best American Sports Writing. He holds a U.S. patent on The E-Club, a utility golf club. In 2016, he was given the Donald Ross Award by the American Society of Golf Course Architects, the organization’s highest honor.
