Quick look at The Open Championship

LOS ANGELES — Sam Burns had the ideal start at The Riviera Country Club. His finish was even better. RELATED: Leaderboard | Willie Mack III holds his own at The Genesis Invitational Burns opened with an 18-foot eagle putt and closed with three straight birdies Thursday in The Genesis Invitational, giving him a 7-under 64, the third time this season he has shot 64 in the opening round. The 24-year-old Burns is still looking for his first PGA TOUR victory. On one of the best courses of the year, against another stacked field, it was a good first step. “This golf course at times doesn’t offer you a lot of opportunities,” Burns said. “So I think just with that mindset going in we were just going to take what we could get.” He had a two-shot lead over Matt Fitzpatrick and Max Homa, who grew up 30 miles away in Valencia and used to attend the PGA TOUR event at Riviera as a kid. Patrick Cantlay, coming off chances to win in Palm Springs and Pebble Beach, extended his run of good play with four birdies on his back nine and was in a large group at 67. Dustin Johnson, who has played Riviera as consistently well as anyone over the last 10 years, couldn’t take advantage of the par 5s and still scrapped his way around to a 68, mainly by taking five putts over the last six holes. “You can’t ask for a course in better shape,” said Johnson. “The greens are perfect. It’s firm and fast. This golf course plays really difficult when it’s firm and fast. You have to be in the right position or you’ve got no chance.” Also at 68 were Brooks Koepka, coming off a victory two weeks ago in Phoenix, and Jordan Spieth, who had at least a share of the 54-hole lead the last two weeks as he tries to end a slump that dates to the 2017 Open Championship. Riviera has a reputation of playing tough even as the game evolves. The 72-hole record, 20-under 264 that Lanny Wadkins set in 1985, has stood the longest of any PGA TOUR event. It was tough enough for Justin Thomas, wo opened with a 77 despite birdies on two of his last three holes. Thomas also had three double bogeys, two of them when he three-putted from inside 6 feet (one was a four-putt). Bryson DeChambeau had a 75. Tae Hoon Kim, who won the Genesis Championship on the Korean PGA last fall to earn an exemption, had the wildest day of all. He started by laying up on the short par-4 10th, which proved a smart play with such firm conditions, and made it pay off with a 10-foot birdie. He holed a bunker shot next to the green on the par-5 11th for eagle. Kim made another eagle with a hole-in-one on the 16th hole. He had another eagle attempt from 40 feet on the fringe at the par-5 first, just missing for a tap-in birdie to reach 5 under. And then he dropped four shots on his next three holes and wound up with a 69. Burns kept a steady hand, dropping shots only on the par-3 sixth when he came up short of a front pin, and at the tough 12th hole into a stiffening afternoon breeze when he found a front bunker. He made enough birdies in the middle of his round to atone for a few mistakes. And mistakes were never too hard to find. “It was one of those days where it’s just as easy to shoot 2 or 3 under as it is to shoot 2 or 3 over,” said Rory McIlroy, who had to settle for the latter after a 73. “There’s a couple of good scores out there, but you didn’t have to do too much wrong to be hovering around even par and be on the other side of it.” Fitzpatrick holed a 45-foot birdie putt on the par-3 14th, made birdie on the next par 3 at the 16th and after making the turn, holed a 25-foot eagle putt on No. 1, which has yielded more eagles than any par 5 on TOUR since 2004. “It’s a great start, couldn’t ask for any better,” Fitzpatrick said. “I feel like I struggle a little bit on poa annua, so to see them how they are this week, so firm and fast, they’re as true as I’ve ever seen. It’s a big advantage of me.” The 10th hole, among the best short par 4s in America, created plenty of challenges. In the morning, Cantlay missed his target by 2 yards and was in just a bad spot that he played some 60 feet away from the flag. In the morning, Spieth thought he was in a good spot until he saw a palm tree in his way. Going to the right was dangerous. So was going to the left. He thought about going under a tree. Ultimately, he went left and pulled it off to perfect. “Couldn’t do that again with a bucket of balls,” he told his caddie. “The shot of the day for me,” Spieth said. “That could have easily been a 5 and it turned out to be a 3.”

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CARNOUSTIE, Scotland — Tommy Fleetwood brings to mind some of the best ball-strikers of yesteryear. The Englishman, with his long locks and aggressive hip turn through impact, looks like a brown-haired version of a young Johnny Miller. He harkens back to the days before space-age technology infiltrated the game, when players flushed unforgiving forged blades and hit wound balls that flew off-line after the slightest mis-hit. Fleetwood is such a good ballstriker, in fact, that he was able to shoot the best round of this Open Championship without his best stuff. Fleetwood’s 6-under 65 on Friday was the low score, and first bogey-free round, thus far at Carnoustie. He sits at 5-under 137 through 36 holes. Earlier this summer, England was two victories from winning its first World Cup since 1966. Now Fleetwood is two rounds from bringing the Claret Jug back to his homeland for the first time since Nick Faldo’s win at Muirfield in 1992. Fleetwood will have to find his swing first. “Normally, when you play great you know where the ball is going,â€� Fleetwood said. “A lot of the shots, I was just looking up, and I was really happy that they were going straight. I didn’t feel fully confident and fully comfortable with my swing.â€� Fleetwood has hit 27 of 36 greens this week, but he headed to the range for a late-afternoon practice session after finishing his first-round 72 with bogeys on 16 and 17. He signed his scorecard around 5:30 p.m., then spent an hour on the driving range with his coach and caddie to “neutralizeâ€� his swing. His swing was too short and under the plane, leading to shots pushed right of his target. “Sometimes … you’ve just got to hit balls and work your way into some good swings,â€� Fleetwood said. Even though it would help his competition, he was hopeful that the rain would cease so he could head to the range Friday for another post-round practice session. Normally, when you play great you know where the ball is going. A lot of the shots, I was just looking up, and I was really happy that they were going straight. I didn’t feel fully confident and fully comfortable with my swing. Thursday’s extra work set the stage for Fleetwood’s latest impressive performance in a major. He is coming off a second-place finish at Shinnecock Hills, where he barely missed a birdie putt for 62 and finished one shot behind Brooks Koepka. Shinnecock and Carnoustie are two of the toughest venues in their respective rotas, but Fleetwood is 12 under par over his past 54 holes on those courses. Fleetwood is in contention at Carnoustie despite playing in the tougher half of the draw, as well. The late-early players got Thursday’s strongest breezes and Friday’s heaviest rain. Only Zach Johnson (69-67) posted a lower score from their half of the field. “Our side of the draw, we had to sort of tough it out a little bit,â€� Rory McIlroy said after shooting consecutive 69s. Fleetwood is unprecedented territory at The Open. He may have grown up around the corner from Royal Birkdale, but he has found more success in the Open held across the Atlantic. He finished fourth at Erin Hills before this year’s runner-up. Last year’s T27 at Royal Birkdale was Fleetwood’s best finish in four Open Championships. He missed the cut in his first three starts in golf’s oldest championship. He owns the course record at Carnoustie, though, after shooting 63 in last year’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. That is the European Tour’s version of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. The event is held on three courses and conditions are easier to ensure the amateurs can get around in a timely fashion. Friday’s round was just his fourth sub-par score in 10 rounds at The Open, and was his lowest ever at this championship. “It’s no course record, but it will do,â€� Fleetwood said. “It was a spirited effort today.â€�

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