MORE ΤΗΑΝ MEETS THE EYE

Mark Townsend meets a funny, warm and perhaps misunderstood Tyrrell Hatton as he looks ahead to The Open at Royal Liverpool

- Tyrrell Hatton

Tyrrell Hatton’s first taste of The Open came in 2010 when, as an 18-year-old amateur and the youngest player in the field, he was forced to hit a driver and a 6-iron into the teeth of the wind to find the 1st green of the Old Course. “Typically, we’re hitting 3-iron, gap wedge and I was hitting a 6-iron in. That was an interesting day for sure,” the Englishman remembers.

Having come through regional qualifying at Gog Magog in Cambridgeshire and then finishing in joint top spot in final qualifying at Ladybank, the teenager teed it up in a Major that Rory McIlroy led after an opening 63. He shot two other rounds in the 60s and eventually finished in a tie for third behind a rampant Louis Oosthuizen. McIlroy’s second round was an 80, while Hatton also got on the wrong half of the draw and missed the cut by nine.

Since then, there have been nine further Open appearances and he now sits on a record which is slanted by missing his first four cuts as a youngster. Then, at Royal Troon, he posted his first Major top-ten finish, something he would follow up in the US PGA at Baltusrol just two weeks later.

Before 2016 was up, Hatton had recorded his first win on tour, and it was a fairly seismic one. He posted weekend rounds of 62-66 over the Old Course at St Andrews to secure the Dunhill Links by four shots. The following year, Ross Fisher would close with a courserecord 61 over the most famous links on the planet but still come up three short of Hatton. Better still, both times Hatton had Irish actor and all-round good guy Jamie Dornan for company. Hatton’s last Major top-ten came in Dornan’s homeland as Royal Portrush played host for the first time in 68 years.

Eyes on the prize