The first round of the 2023 British Open is now complete and there is a three-way tie for the lead. At -5 are Christo Lamprecht of George, South Africa, Emiliano Grillo of Resistencia, Argentina, and Tommy Fleetwood of Southport, England.
Lamprecht is a 6’8″ Georgia Tech student who qualified for the 2023 British Open in Liverpool by winning the 2023 British Amateur Championship in Fleetwood’s hometown of Southport. On Thursday he had seven birdies and two bogeys. He birdied the third, fifth, sixth, 10th, 14th, 15th, and 18th holes, and bogeyed the 11th and 16th holes.
Grillo won on the PGA Tour earlier this year as he beat American Adam Schenk in a playoff to win the Charles Schwab Challenge. Like Lamptrecht, Grillo had seven birdies and two bogeys. He birdied the fifth, ninth, 11th, 12th, 15th, 17th, and 18th holes, and bogeyed the first and third holes.
Like Grillo, Fleetwood has been in a playoff in 2023. However, Fleetwood lost his playoff to Nick Taylor of Canada at the Canadian Open. In round one, Fleetwood had six birdies and one bogey. He birdied the fifth, seventh, 11th, 14th, 15th, and 16th holes, and bogeyed the sixth hole.
Three golfers are tied for fourth place at -4. There you find Antoine Rozner of Paris, France, Adrian Otaegui of Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain, and Brian Harman of Savannah, Georgia.
Six golfers are two strokes back at -3. There you have two American major champions (Stewart Cink of Huntsville, Alabama and Wyndham Clark of Denver, Colorado), Max Homa of Burbank, California, Alex Noren of Stockholm, Sweden, Shubhankar Sharma of Jammu, India and Scotland’s Michael Stewart, who is in fact 868th in the world. Cink won the 2009 British Open and Clark won the 2023 United States Open.
Six more golfers are two strokes back at -2. Here we have three-time major champion Jordan Spieth of Dallas, Texas, Matthew Jordan of Wirral Peninsula, England, Si-woo Kim of Seoul, South Korea, Alexander Bjork of Vaxjo, Sweden, Oliver Wilson of Mansfield, England, and Guido Migliozzi of Vicenza, Italy. Spieth’s major titles came at the 2015 Masters, 2015 United States Open and 2017 British Open.
