Crowd favourite Fleetwood shares British Open lead, McIlroy among survivors

The British Open showed again Thursday that even after 163 years, golf's oldest championship can still deliver a few surprises.

It started with Christo Lamprecht, the South African amateur as tall as a flag stick and almost as thin, making three birdies over his last six holes and posting a 5-under 66 to become the first amateur in 12 years to share the 18-hole lead at the Open.

Curiosity about the 22-year-old amateur turned to glee at the site of the local hero, Tommy Fleetwood, running off three straight birdies on the back nine at Royal Liverpool to join him atop the leaderboard. Emiliano Grillo of Argentina became the third to post 66 by holing a birdie putt from 50 feet on the last hole.

McIlroy, trying desperately to end his nine-year drought in the majors, was happy to get away with a 71. He risked the round getting away from him until making up for that wee miss on the eighth hole with a 40-foot birdie on the 14th that sparked him.

And then it almost got away from him in the end — just like the bunkers on the 18th ruined so many other rounds — when he left one in the pot bunker and expertly got out the second time and made a 10-foot par.

Scottie Scheffler, the world's No. 1 player, got around in 70 in the morning before the breeze turned into a stiff wind.

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Masters champion Jon Rahm reached a point where he felt nothing was going his way, and it wasn't. He hit what he thought was a good shot into the 18th only for it to find a bunker, forcing him to play back toward the fairway and turning a birdie chance into bogey. Rahm opened with a 74.

"It does ask a lot of questions, this golf course," an exasperated Shane Lowry said after a 72.

What it left behind