Tommy Fleetwood keeps dreaming. So does everyone at Birkdale

SOUTHPORT, England — There’s a popular phrase in golf that says there are no pictures on scorecards; just numbers. It’s all about the integers written and the sums they create. The phrase is popular because it’s true most of the time.

Just not on Saturday for Tommy Fleetwood in the town where he was raised. We needed pictures on the scorecard, because 18 holes came and went and, somehow, he’s one shot further away from the Open Championship lead (5) than when his day began (4). And because that score tells us precisely nothing about one of the most thrilling scenes pro golf can make. Royal Birkdale is blanketed by dreamers. 

If you could add pictures to Fleetwood’s third round scorecard, you’d attach a snap of spectators on their hands and knees, struggling up these impossible sand dunes for a glimpse of their king. Forget the dunes, even — the card would simply show people climbing on other people. It would include a pic of Guy Kinnings, CEO of the European Tour, pressed up against the rope line on the 11th. He had to get a look at it, too. 

This scorecard would have sound because it would have to have sound. The European football sing-songs based around his name. Tomey-lad this, Tomey-lad that, in that rising, Scouse accent. They even broke out a rendition of Spirit of the Blues, the fight song of Everton FC, Tommy’s favorite football club. Usually Everton fans (The Blues) don’t get along with Liverpool fans (The Reds). But one golfer in particular can bring them together, it seems. 

“I know you’re a blue-nosed c**t, Tommy, but I still love ya,” one LFC fan shouted. A marshal on the 12th tee offered something much softer: 

“He’s just so loved, isn’t he?”

He really is. 

And to understand what’s on the line at this Open via some final round charge from the local boy, it might be worth exploring why Tom Fleetwood is so loved.

Part of it is in that football club, unofficially dubbed the people’s club of northwest England. Far from perfect, far from corporate or commercial or even internationally adored. Everton executives try to orchestrate big plans whenever he comes around for a match. He always elects for a low profile. 

Tommy’s dad, Pete, never left Lancashire. His worldly son jokes that Pete is more famous in Southport than Tommy is. Father Fleetwood has not been present much this week, but he’s been around, probably a few train stops south, watching wherever he can actually see, given the horde of locals following his son. It was Pete who sawed down adult clubs for young Tommy in the mid-90s and introduced him to the game at Southport muni, a course with tiny greens and weekday rates for $25. Its tee sheet was packed Saturday morning. Get your golf in before Tommy tees off. Same as it was in 2023 when Fleetwood contended at Hoylake.

And doesn’t Tommy feel a bit … municipal? Accessible. Approachable. Vulnerable, even. He’s about half the size of his towering caddie, Ian Finnis, who also calls this area home. They’ve been friends for decades, and now Finnis’ entire life runs through Fleetwood’s ball-striking brilliance. 

You could see thoughts arrive on each of their faces during Saturday’s nervy walk. Occasionally their eyebrows would raise as they turned a corner to see a new crowd dancing across dunes that have never been burdened by this many people. There was a camping nature to their position on the course — fans posting up ahead of the action just to watch them walk by. Kemm onn Tomey. 

“Walking up to every green, it’s like the most amazing ovation that you can imagine,” Fleetwood said. “Then I sort of acknowledge them in my way because I still want to stay in my bubble, in a way, but it just happens that there’s like thousands of people in my bubble with me that are willing me on.”

For a few moments it was all right there, too — one stroke back of the lead through 50 holes and Birkdale’s rip-roaring finish between them and the clubhouse. Fleetwood said he’s been envisioning that scene since he attended the 1998 Open at Birkdale, when he was 7 years old, the same age his son Frankie is now. 

Did some air get squeezed out of the balloon with two back nine bogeys? Yeah, it did. Were there some angsty photos and anguished groans that could accompany those scores? Oh yeah. But in many ways that third round was merely a transition to a day that could mean even more.

In his hometown and with the entire region watching, the photos will be indelible, the sounds will be immense and the scores will make it concrete. No matter the tally, we’ll have known it was something greater.