nahan (1950), Tiger Woods (1996)
and Justin Rose (1998). It was the
first time an amateur led a major
championship since Mike Reid after
the first round of the 1976 U.S. Open
at Atlanta AC. No amateur had led
the British Open since 1968, when
Michael Bonallack shot a 70 at Carnoustie to share the first-round lead
with Brian Barnes.
It made for a heady day for Lewis,
who arrived with a good feeling about
the Open venue, having won the
2009 British Boys Amateur there,
but modest expectations for his first
appearance in golf’s oldest major.
“On the first tee, to play with Tom, no
matter what I shot, was going to be
excellent,” Lewis said after the first
round in a packed interview room. “I
was more not wanting to embarrass
myself in front of him. To shoot 65
in front of Tom was just
excellent, and he was just
a great man to play with.”
Lewis impressed Wat-
son, who characterized
his game as “refined”
and beyond his years.
“He’s a fine player, he
really is,” Watson said.
“He’s got strength, he’s
got a wonderful putting
and pitching touch.
20-year-old, and that’s what you look
Notebook
RepoRteR’s
By Jim Moriarty
FYI . . .
e Four players shot opening
rounds in the 60s at both
the Masters and U.S. Open
in 2011, and they all came
close to doing it again at
the British. Ultimately, all
four failed. Sergio Garcia
came closest, shooting
even-par 70 after a bogey
on the 18th hole. Y.E. Yang
shot 71 as did the year’s
previous major champs,
Rory McIlroy and Charl
Schwartzel.
It’s well known that Royal St. George’s
was the basis for the fictional Royal St.
Mark’s where James Bond and Auric
“Goldfinger” had their infamous golf
match. Though he was no Bernard
Darwin, Ian Fleming’s description is
faithful to the course where he played
as a member from 1948 until his death
in August 1964, and often idled his days
away sipping pink gin in the smoking
room of the male-only club.
There are significant differences
between the written and cinematic
versions. First, the location in the movie
is not Royal St. George’s but Stoke Park
CC and Resort in Buckinghamshire. The
clubhouse where Oddjob decapitates
a statue with his bowler hat and the
surrounding estate have been used as
a location for numerous productions,
including that other action/thriller,
“Bridget Jones’s Diary.” Stoke Park was
designed by James Wyatt, an architect
engaged on a couple of other projects
by King George III, the fellow with whom
the colonies had all that bother.
In the “real” match, Oddjob wasn’t
Goldfinger’s caddie, either. That task
fell to the obsequious Foulks. The
switching of the golf ball and the “strict
rules of golf” are right out of the book,
though the classic exchange (“Do you
expect me to talk?” “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.”) isn’t. And the way you
know Bond is the good guy is he’s the
one who actually hit the 17th fairway,
which is more fantastical than anything
Q Branch ever came up with in the movies, including the Aston Martin DB5 with
the machine guns and ejector seat.
Fleming, who was a better player
than Sean Connery, was a frequent playing companion of John Blackwell—think
Crosse & Blackwell gourmet sauces—
another St. George’s member who just
happened to have a cousin married to
an architect name Erno Goldfinger.
