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Regular guy Dan Brown had another good day at Royal Troon.
The Englishman's 1-over 72 on Friday was enough to stay in the mix at the halfway point of the British Open. He was in a tie for second, two shots behind leader Shane Lowry.
Brown couldn’t emulate his opening 65 — which added him to a long list of surprise first-round leaders at the Open like Christo Lamprecht, Tom Lewis and Hennie Otto — but Friday's workmanlike shift left him at 5 under overall and showed he can stick around.
He could have easily been unnerved early on but wasn't. Lowry retook a one-shot lead by the time Brown's round started.
Then Brown sent a drive into a fairway bunker on No. 3. No worries, though. He smoked a cigarette on his walk down the fairway, calmly chipped out and still saved par.
“I've always been quite laid back really,” Brown said. “I am a bit of a realist as well. I know I’m not going to start getting ahead of myself and thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’m leading the Open’ or ‘I’m second in the Open’ or whatever. There’s 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.”
Brown has friends staying with him at a house near Royal Troon. He got them passes to the players’ lounge, where they’ve all been playing table tennis to help Brown unwind while he makes his major championship debut.
Before this week, Brown failed to make the cut in seven straight tournaments dating to March but clinched his spot at the Open with a 20-foot birdie on the final hole at a qualifying event in West Lancashire this month.
Brown, a one-time winner on the European tour, had a bogey-free opening round but tried to “rein myself in a little bit” Friday due to windier conditions.
“I sort of knew that in the blink of an eye, you could drop a few shots, and then you’re kind of, not out of it, but yeah, it’s a long old week, and you’ve just got to kind of stick in and hang around and hopefully you can still get out on Sunday."
Brown settled for a bogey on No. 4 after his second shot went into the rough, sending spectators scrambling to help locate his ball. The only obvious sign of frustration was when he tapped his putter after missing a short par putt on the ninth. A huge leaderboard directly in his view before the miss showed him and Lowry tied at that point.
“You always have a bit of a glance. They’re massive, so you can’t really miss them,” he said. “But having a glance doesn’t really ... it doesn’t really bother me too much. I’m not going to go out and think, ‘Oh, I’m two back or I’m one back, I need to chase it.’ I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing, and hopefully that’s good enough.”
Brown birdied the 10th and got a “C'mon Dan, do it for Bedale!” from a fan referring to Brown's former club in North Yorkshire.
After a birdie on the par-5 16th, Brown high-fived fans on the short walk to the next tee. He bogeyed the par-3 17th, though, after missing a short putt. He closed out his round with a par.
Surprise early leaders in past British Opens typically faded away. Otto finished tied for 10th at Royal St. George’s in 2003. Lewis shared the first-round lead in 2011, also at Royal St. George’s, before slipping down to a tie for 30th. Last year at Hoylake, Lamprecht fell even further.
Lowry, who won the claret jug at Royal Portrush five years ago, noticed Scottie Scheffler on the leaderboard as well as Justin Rose “and this guy Daniel Brown, I’ve never played with him, but obviously he had a great day yesterday and looks to be going all right today."
‘This guy’ gets asked regularly about “The Da Vinci Code.” He's not the author Dan Brown.
“Yeah, I’ve had that a lot. ... Hopefully, I can start making a bit of a name for myself, and people will say to him, ‘Are you the golfer?’”
