Who the heck is Danny Willett and what’s he doing leading the British Open?
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Early-tournament major leaderboards are like going to a class reunion of people two grades below you. You recognize a couple of the names, sure, but there are many more unfamiliar ones that may as well have parachuted in from Pluto … or South Yorkshire, as the case may be.
Friday at the British Open started late because of heavy rains, and then began in a window of rare calm before round-shattering winds would roll in. Taking full advantage of that brief instance of calm was Danny Willett, who started the day one stroke behind leader Dustin Johnson but by Hole 10 had built a three-shot lead on the field. You know, just like we all predicted.
Willett is 9-under, two strokes clear of the field, with just a few holes to play.
So who the heck is Danny Willett? He’s a European Tour vet who’s basically the English Rickie Fowler. Both have two wins on their home tours. Willett’s 27, Fowler is 26. Willett had four amateur wins, Fowler had five. Fowler held the World Amateur Golf No. 1 spot for several streteches in 2007 and 2008; Willett overtook him during one of those stretches. Both players competed on the 2007 Walker Cup team, a Europe-America showdown that also featured future notables like Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson.
[Slideshow: Wild weather at the British Open]
Granted, the comparisons start to fall apart the higher up the professional ladder you move; Willett has never placed higher than a tie for 15th in a major, while Fowler has tied for second on several occasions. But at the moment, Willett is leading the British Open and Fowler’s 10 strokes back.
Willett also played a couple seasons of golf at Jacksonville State University. He hasn’t played much in the U.S., but won PGA Tour playing privileges for the rest of 2015 with a third-place finish at the WGC-Cadillac Match Play back in May.
He’s also in an ideal position. He’ll obviously play late on Saturday, when conditions are expected to improve from gale-force winds, and could be set up perfectly for a run at his first major championship.
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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at [email protected] or find him on Twitter.
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