Dan Brown's love affair with The Open Championship continued on Thursday, with the Englishman carding a four-under 66 to co-lead as he finished his round in the morning.
Claiming a T10th finish on his Major debut at Royal Troon in 2024, this week at Royal Birkdale is a big one for the 31-year-old, who is looking to keep his PGA Tour card in his rookie season.
Currently, Brown finds himself 145th in the FedEx Cup Standings and, with the top 100 only keeping their PGA Tour cards for 2027, a strong result in Southport would go along way for the two-time DP World Tour winner.
A total of 750 FedEx Cup points will go to The Open champion and, with Brown 162 points behind William Mouw, who occupies the 100th spot in the FedEx Cup Standings with 283, a big week is needed for the former, who has made just six cuts in 15 starts.
Earning just two top 25s, Brown's best result of 2026 came at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, where he finished T13th alongside John Parry.
Certainly, at Royal Birkdale, Brown should have home support behind him, with the Englishman a bit of a fan favorite thanks to his humorous social media activity and personality.
Earning his PGA Tour card via the DP World Tour in 2025, Brown in fact finished outside the necessary 10 spots at the time, but due to Laurie Canter joining LIV Golf at the end of the year, he jumped into the required 10th spot.
As of writing, Kristoffer Reitan is the best performer from the 10 DP World Tour players who earned their cards, with his win at the Truist Championship putting him 17th in the Standings.
Following on from The Open Championship, just three tournaments remain prior to the FedEx Cup Playoffs, where the top 70 advance to the FedEx St. Jude Championship.
These three events (3M Open, Rocket Classic and Wyndham Championship) still provide plenty of points and prize money, meaning there's still a lot to play for in terms of the FedEx Cup Standings.
The fields for these tournaments will be announced in due course, with it likely that Brown will tee it up as he looks to keep his PGA Tour playing rights for the 2027 season.
If he were to finish outside the top 100, then Brown will take part in the FedEx Cup Fall Series, an eight event run where players can improve their ranking number and secure coveted starts for 2027.
Speaking at Royal Birkdale, Brown stated: "It was a very nice day. Tee to green, it's similar to how I've been playing recently. But today a few putts dropped, which was nice to see because I've not seen that for a while...
"Obviously it's only Thursday, but hopefully I'm in a sort of similar area on the leaderboard come Sunday."
