Tommy Fleetwood’s Homecoming: A Saturday of Dreams and Decibels at Royal Birkdale

SOUTHPORT, England — Golf lore insists there are no pictures on a scorecard, only numbers. It is a cliché because it is usually true. Saturday at Royal Birkdale was the exception.

For Tommy Fleetwood, playing in the town where he was raised, the integers told a misleading story. Eighteen holes came and went; he signed for a 70. The arithmetic shows him one stroke further from the lead (five back) than when he arrived at the first tee (four back). But the scorecard lies. It captures nothing of the electricity that surged through the links, marking one of the most viscerally thrilling rounds by any contender at The Open in recent memory.

A realist would glance at the standings and call Fleetwood’s position dire. He trails a stronger leaderboard than he did 24 hours ago, and the holes are vanishing. Yet Royal Birkdale has not hosted many realists this week. It has been overrun by dreamers.

If photographs could be pasted beside the numbers, they would show spectators scrambling up impossible dunes on hands and knees for a glimpse of their king. Forget the dunes—the images would depict fans climbing over one another. They would capture European Tour CEO Guy Kinnings pressed against the ropes at the 11th, craning for a view like everyone else.

This hypothetical scorecard would require a soundtrack. The air vibrated with European football chants adapted for the moment: Tomey lad this, Tomey lad that, delivered in a rising Scouse lilt. A rendition of Spirit of the Blues—the anthem of Everton FC, Fleetwood’s beloved club—erupted spontaneously. In this corner of England, Evertonians (the Blues) and Liverpudlians (the Reds) rarely find common ground. One golfer appears to have brokered a temporary peace.

“I know you’re a blue-nosed c**t, Tommy, but I still love ya,” a Liverpool supporter shouted from the gallery. A marshal on the 12th tee offered a gentler assessment: “He’s just so loved, isn’t he?”

He really is. Understanding what hangs in the balance for Sunday— a final-round charge by a local son—requires understanding why Tom Fleetwood inspires such devotion.

Part of it traces to that football club, unofficially christened the “people’s club” of northwest England. Everton executives attempt to orchestrate grand receptions whenever he attends a match at Goodison Park. He consistently declines, preferring anonymity.

Fleetwood’s father, Pete, never left Lancashire. His worldly son jokes that Pete is more famous in Southport than he is. Pete has been a spectral presence this week, likely watching from a few train stops south, positioned wherever he can actually see the action through the horde enveloping his son. It was Pete who sawed down adult clubs for a young Tommy in the mid-1990s and introduced him to the game at Southport Municipal, a course of tiny greens and $25 weekday rates. The tee sheet there was packed Saturday morning—locals squeezing in rounds before Fleetwood’s tee time. The same scene played out in 2023 when he contended at Hoylake.

And doesn’t Fleetwood himself feel a bit… municipal? Accessible. Approachable. Vulnerable, even. He stands roughly half the size of his towering caddie, Ian Finnis, another local. They have been friends for decades; now Finnis’s livelihood runs on Fleetwood’s ball-striking brilliance.

Thoughts flickered across both their faces during Saturday’s nervy procession. Eyebrows raised as they turned corners to discover new throngs dancing across dunes never burdened by such crowds. There was a campsite permanence to the galleries—fans posting up hours early just to watch them walk past. How 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 fleeting stretch, the dream was tangible—one stroke back through 50 holes, with Birkdale’s rip-roaring finishing stretch separating him from the clubhouse. Fleetwood admitted he has envisioned this exact scene since attending the 1998 Open at Birkdale as a seven-year-old—the same age his son, Frankie, is now.

Did two back-nine bogeys let some air out of the balloon? Certainly. Were there anguished groans and pained expressions to accompany those dropped shots? Absolutely. Yet in a broader sense, Saturday was merely a bridge to a day that could mean infinitely more.

On Sunday, in his hometown, with the entire region watching, the images will be indelible, the roar immense, and the scores finally concrete. But at some point during his final loop around Royal Birkdale, with an Open Championship within reach, all Fleetwood will be thinking about are dreams.

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