'It's a true test' - Dan Bradbury and Danny Willett have work cut out to keep Open dream alive at Hoylake

The 23-year-old from Wakefield does not begin his second round until 3.43pm by which time he will have a clear idea of the score he needs to shoot after an opening 76 left him battling to save the cut at Royal Liverpool.

He is in good company alongside three other Yorkshiremen who all need to go under par on day two to keep alive their hopes of winning this famous trophy.

Last year’s US Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick is the pick of the White Rose quartet on one over after what he described as an ‘average round’.

His fellow major winner and someone who generally fares better on a links layout, Danny Willett, is one shot worse off after playing in the slightly gustier winds in the afternoon.

And Alex Fitzpatrick, Matt’s brother making his major debut less than a year after turning professional, signed for a 74 after an eventful conclusion which saw him drop three shots on the contentious par-three 17th but then get one back immediately on the par-five 18th.

This is a maiden major for Bradbury, too, earned by virtue of his win at the Joburg Open in November in just his third start on the DP World Tour.

And while the experience was one he relished as he was followed round the Hoylake links by a good number from Wakefield Golf Club, he will be determined to produce a performance to savour to go with the experience.

“We’re changing the cut line tomorrow, or bringing the bins in as Darren Clarke said the other day,” smiled Bradbury.

"We’ll have a good idea when we tee off, and by halfway round you’ll pretty much know. I’ll just have to go out there and shoot a few under.”

In the lead up to the Open, Bradbury told The Yorkshire Post he would be aggressive in his strategy and he was true to his word, taking a driver off most tees other than those where the wind was against.

It saved him from trouble all the way up to the 18th tee when he drove the ball out of bounds and ran up a double-bogey seven that would have left a sour taste in the mouth of a seasoned professional.

Not Bradbury, though.

"It wasn’t a bad tee shot it just went out of bounds and didn’t get what it deserved,” he shrugged. “Other than that and the sixth when it wasn’t a good tee shot, I was one over, which was respectable.”

He gave himself plenty of looks at the hole before finally draining a birdie putt on nine. He had another on 14. “I struggled to see the reads on the front nine and once one drops you start to get it. But the first eight holes I couldn’t see the lines,” lamented Bradbury.

He largely stayed out of the bunkers, though, which on the fairways are effectively a one-shot penalty.

Better players came to grief in the sand. Tony Finau had to putt backwards in one fairway bunker while Justin Thomas went out of one greenside bunker into the one next to him en route to a quadruple bogey on 18.

From the same greenside bunker, John Rahm – with a face like thunder – had to play out backwards.

Willett played soundly. The 2016 Masters champion was in generous mood walking the course, giving a jumper to a cold child behind the spectator ropes, and shots to the course on four, 10 and 16, the latter because he found a fairway bunker and could only advance it 10 yards.

“On and off,” was his assessment. “It got quite tricky, the wind got cold, thought that middle stretch with the cross winds was tough. Every flag you wanted to get at seemed like it was on the side where the wind was at, so it always makes it tricky.

“I hit some decent ones, hit some poor ones, but it was probably what it should have been score wise.”

Having competed well every time he has contested an Open at St Andrews, he knows a good links test when he plays one.

“It’s just a well set-up golf course. It’s a great Open test,” enthused Willett. “You can see that if you play well there’s some scores out there, if you don’t play well, you can go pretty high.

“It’s just a real good, fair test.”

He spoke in favour of the radical 17th as well, a hole shortened dramatically that forces a player to hit a wedge onto a lumpy green that runs off into bunkers or sand dunes.

“We pitch up so often these days and they’ve extended a par three to 240, 250, so it’s nice for a change for them to take off 80-odd yards. The best par threes in my opinion are the short ones,” said Willett, who played with John Daly, looking his age but still a blur of colour with his wispy white beard, Hooters-sponsored bag and the name Trump emblazoned on his waterproofs.

That’s another thing to contend with on Friday – rain.

The forecast gets worse at the weekend.

Hopefully a few Yorkshire players are there to experience it.