SOUTHPORT, England — Tommy Fleetwood doesn’t need to sneak onto Royal Birkdale anymore. The 26-year-old, who grew up a couple of miles from the site of this year’s Open Championship, returns with his face on posters and lampposts around town, and a banner hanging in front of his former school after a half-dozen victories around the globe, including two this year, and having risen to No. 14 in the world.
“It’s better than nothing,” he said when asked if all the attention and pressure that goes with being the hometown favorite is a distraction. “I’d much rather be in this position where people might be talking about me as a contender rather than turning up and sort of being a no-show.
But could they be talking too much? Could the accompanying pressure of all the attention from locals have a negative impact? Fleetwood thinks not.
“I’ve thought about winning The Open since I was 5 years old, so thinking about it for a few days isn’t going to make any difference to me.”
While Fleetwood hone..

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Golf documentaries are often focused on a player or event. Though Summer of '76 centers on that year's Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, it breaks the mold by looking outside the sport's horizons.
Make no mistake: there's plenty of golf to be found in the new Golf Channel film, with its heart devoted to Johnny Miller's victory in Southport. It also explores how the performance of a 19-year-old Seve Ballesteros — who owned a three-shot lead over Miller at one point on Sunday, only finish in second by six shots — was the catalyst for European resurgence in the game, signaling a wave of incoming talent that would eventually culminate in the continent's domination of the Ryder Cup a decade later.
But the movie also examines the cultural environment of that summer, bringing in non-golf voices like Lynn Swann and Peter Frampton to speak on the character and tenor of the times. Narrated by actor Tim Matheson and aided by the sounds of the decade, Summer of &..