Given that he stands at a mighty 6ft 8in, you half expected Christo Lamprecht’s head to be shrouded in a light mist as he ambled down the 18th fairway on day one of The Open Championship here at Hoylake.
The young South African amateur was certainly walking tall as his delightfully assembled five-under 66 set the early clubhouse target.
In the media centre, meanwhile, various writers were careering around asking if he would be the tallest man to play in the game’s oldest Major.
The Scottish scribblers were swift to point out that oor ain golfing giant, Gordon Sherry, was another 6ft 8in competitor in the 1995 Open at St Andrews. And who could forget Englishman Jonathan Thompson, who made the Colossus of Rhodes look like Jimmy Krankie and stood at a formidable 6ft 9in when he contested the 2021 showpiece.
Lamprecht’s lofty perch on the leaderboard mirrored his lofty stature and his amateur dramatics in this corner of the golfing world were particularly fitting.
Hoylake, after all, is the club where the Amateur Championship was formed back in ye day. The UK’s greatest amateur, John Ball, came from the Wirral town while the celebrated, decorated American amateur, Bobby Jones, won The Open at this venue in 1930 on his way to winning the grand slam.
Lamprecht himself claimed the Amateur Championship title not far from here at Hillside in Southport last month. There are some nice omens to cling too, then.
An amateur winning The Open in the modern era is, well, a tall order. Then again? Irishman Paul Dunne was sharing the lead going into the final round at St Andrews in 2015 and Lamprecht is certainly not surprised to see his own name proudly in the upper echelons.
“I earned my spot to be here and I think the way I played today I earned to be on the top of the leaderboard,” he said. “It’s not a cocky thing to say. I just believe in myself. And I guess stepping on to the first tee box, if you’re a professional or an amateur, you should be believing that you should be the best standing there.”
As lean as a one-iron, Lamprecht put in a display of poise, precision, power and panache as he revelled in his Open debut and posted the lowest first round by an amateur in the championship since Tom Lewis started with a 65 at Sandwich in 2011.
A chip-in from some 40 yards for birdie on the 14th illuminated a round which also included gains at all three of the par-fives. The 22-year-old was part of Louis Oosthuizen’s foundation and, in the company of his fellow South African yesterday, he outscored his mentor by eight shots.
“He’s got a game,” cooed Oosthuizen.
He certainly has. There is much more to this all-round game than crash, bang, wallop but Lamprecht can give that dimpled ball a heck of a clatter. A driver can be carried a gasping 340 yards.
“But I don’t want to here, not in this weather, not in links golf,” he said. “It rolls far enough, so I kind of keep it in front of me.”
As he unleashed a series of booming swipes on the range the other day, Lamprecht had the big-hitting Bryson DeChambeau analysing his technique with admiration.
“He just wished he had my length, I guess,” added Lamprecht with a chuckle.
Developing his golf, while his body was also developing, was not ideal.
“I was a little bit better than everyone at 14 or 15- years old and then I hit the growth spurt,” he said. “I didn’t know what was going on. I was changing clubs every six months. At the start of high school, I was growing so fast, my swing changed every week and it was all over the place for two years.”
Given his family history, there was no way Lamprecht was going to be Mr Average on the height front.
“My dad is 6ft 4in and he’s the shortest of the last five generations,” he said. “My grandfather was like 6ft 8in and my great grandfather was 7ft.”
The Open’s tall tale could develop into quite the story.
