New Delhi, July 13 -- SOUTHPORT - For Tommy Fleetwood, the walk to Royal Birkdale's first tee on Thursday morning will carry a weight most competitors at a major championship never experience. He grew up minutes from this Lancashire links, trained at the Southport & Birkdale Sports Club where a mural on the clubhouse wall bears his likeness, and has watched every Open held at Birkdale as a spectator imagining what contention from the inside would feel like. Ranked third in the world this week, without a finish worse than 14th in any of his last five events, Fleetwood arrives with an answer worth giving.

The 154th Open Championship begins July 16 at Royal Birkdale, and nobody in the 156-man field will be playing the course they remember....