While You Were Sleeping: Amateur Christo Lamprecht Charged Out To An Early Lead At The Open Championship With An Opening Round 66

Stuart Franklin/R&A. Getty Images.

Open Championship is off and running, and actually has been for a good 6 hours now as I type this at 7:35 AM ET. The weather conditions were relatively benign this morning as expected, with the wind down and the course rather soft and gettable. The prognosis going into the day was that those that went out in the morning had a scoring advantage over those playing in the afternoon when the wind is forecasted to pick up. 

While that still may remain true, it's a bit surprising that scores have not been lower in the early going. At the moment there are 93 players either on the course or wrapped up for the day, and only 22 are under par, with no professional staking themselves to an early lead.

 I say professional, because an am from South Africa named Christo Lamprecht had himself a DAY out there, firing a 66 to stake himself a couple shots ahead of the pack.

So who the heck is this guy? Well for starter's, he's an absolute behemoth of a man. 6'8 is not something you typically see in a top tier golf tournament. Long gangly limbs often make for big misses. Just too many moving parts. But the kid is doing it anyway. He's a 22 year old who plays his college golf at Georgia Tech, earning 1st Team All-American honors this year and winning the Amateur Championship (a tournament that was founded at Royal Liverpool) in June to earn his way into this field.

Predictably given his size, his length off the tee is the strength of his game and that proved big today. It's v early but right now he's 1st in driving distance with 325 yards and 1st in Strokes Gained: Off the tee with 2.31. But the highlights of his round featured a crispy pitch-in 

And a classic links-style splash out on the drivable 4th that helped position him for a clutch up and down for par

Oh, and a filthy club twirl to boot

As I write this he's still holding a 2 shot lead over Stewie Cink and a handful of studs in red figures. He'll all but surely get run down at some point, and that may happen before the day is over. But for now, it's a great story and I hope the kid hangs in there.

Stay tuned, lotta golf left.