Clubhouse lead for Danny Willett

Those are three of the contenders to win an Open Championship at some point, but there has to be a real danger that numerous leading hopes produced by England Golf over the last two decades are in danger of missing the boat.

“The intention is to complete the second round today with round three to be played on Sunday and the final round to be played on Monday”, The R&A said in a statement.

Playing with renowned long driver Gary Woodland from United States of America and former Thai paratrooper Thongchai Jaidee, Willett, ranked 39 in the world, was frequently the longest off the tee with a 318-yard average and was totally fearless.

Willett, whose dad is a vicar, said: “It was good fun”.

He said: ‘The more you play with the guys, the more you realise that they don’t do things a great deal better than you, if at all.

“It’s a work in progress and it’s nice that it’s come off this week”.

Sir Nick Faldo, the last English victor of the tournament in 1992, was appearing in his 37th and final Open.

After greenkeepers cleared the waterlogged course so play could restart at 10am, Willett carded birdies on the second, fifth and ninth to reach the turn in 33, before another birdie on the 10th gave him a three-shot lead as Zach Johnson dropped shots on the 11th and 12th.

It was reward for a fine display which sparked as Willett birdied the second after a lob wedge to 12 feet.

But bogeys at each of the last three holes left him one under par for the round.

Tiger looking to bounce back, has this tester for par on 1, gets it to go but he is now +5 through 11. As a result, the Brit was able to afford bogeys at 15 and 17, but the tail of that tandem is a virtual par given that The Road Hole averaged 4.833 in the opening round and did not yield a par breaker.

More than three hours of play was lost at the start of Friday’s action when a rain-storm deluged the Old Course, and 42 players were unable to complete their rounds by the time darkness fell. “It must have just kept going”.

Afterwards he could reflected on a solid display while the later starters faced tougher conditions.

“Four o’clock is our best-case scenario, but before we go out and try to start at four we need to see a meaningful reduction in wind speeds”, he told ESPN.

‘Windy like the first round, that’s an Open Championship.

The Scot smiled: “I ended up actually going to the auto, watched a bit of TV and ended up falling asleep, kind of dozing on and off just listening to some music and watching “Everybody Loves Raymond”.