At 6ft8in in his socks, Christo Lamprecht is used to being looked up to. Just not by the best golfers in the world. Not until Thursday, at any rate. The likes of Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler and the rest may have to start getting used to craning their necks skywards because the 22 year-old South African, a student at Georgia Tech, is beginning to loom large on their horizon.
A brilliant first round 66 at Hoylake on Thursday saw Lamprecht, who won the 128th Amateur Championship at Hillside a few weeks ago to qualify for this Open, rocket to the top of the leaderboard. It was a position he still occupied towards the end of day one, tied with local favorite Tommy Fleetwood.
He is not expected to stay there of course. The last amateur to win the Open was Bobby Jones back in 1930. But it is not hard to imagine Lamprecht making a serious impact on the pro game once he graduates next year.
For starters he hits the ball an absolute mile. You might think that unsurprising given the BFG-length levers Lamprecht possesses, but it is the acceleration and balance in his action which is so impressive for such a tall man. Even Bryson DeChambeau, who knows a thing or two about big-hitting, was moved to sit up to Lamprecht after observing the speed of his swing in practice earlier this week.
What did he say? “He just wished he had my length, I guess,” Lamprecht smiled in the mixed zone after completing his opening round. “Well, I don’t know. Hitting it far is not what I think golf is all about. I think links golf is a true test of golf and it’s the way golf is supposed to be played. Stepping out there, hitting it as hard as I can and hitting it 400 yards, it’s fun, it’s cool. But it’s not something I focus on and worry about at all.” Why would you? Not when you can drive it 325 yards in your sleep.
Lamprecht averaged that distance off the tee on Thursday, among the longest in the field. And he admitted he was holding back. “I can get it to carry 340yds, but I don’t want to,” he said. “Not in this weather. Use in links golf. It rolls far enough.”
The South African is not short of confidence, that is for sure. But he does not appear in the least big-headed. He gave a charmingly left-field interview after his round, happy to field questions about everything from his shoe size (“Pretty average. A US 13, so nothing out of the ordinary. I know there’s a lot bigger feet in America.”) to his suspiciously American accent (“I’ve gotten in a lot of trouble the last year and a half with all my friends back home in South Africa. Apparently I’m a full-blown American now, which I don’t like. I don’t know why it’s changed. I can’t change it back.”) to his fondness for pickleball (“We do that a bunch at Tech. All the off days, pickleball is the No 1 favorite.”).
Perhaps he should try to book in a game with his fellow Georgia Tech student Christopher Eubanks, who reached the quarter-finals at Wimbledon last week? They would at least be a match in height, with Eubanks standing 6ft7in tall. Lamprecht laughed.
The height-based questions kept coming. Was everyone in his family tall? “My dad is 6ft4in and he’s the shortest of the last five generations,” he smiled. “My grandfather was like 6ft8in and great-grandfather like 7ft.”
Has he ever played anyone taller? “Tommy Morrison. He is a freshman at Texas. 6ft10in. I recently looked up to him and he’s like ‘Hey, big guy’. I was like ‘Okay, fair enough’. It caught me off guard a little bit. But he’s pretty tall.”
It is going to be fun watching Lamprecht over the next few days and years. Louis Oosthuizen, the 2015 Open champion, played with him on Thursday and knows him better than most. It was through Oosthuizen’s academy in South Africa that Lamprecht first emerged at the age of 14 or so. “He was already taller than me then,” Oosthuizen recalled, laughing. “But no, Chris has got game. He hit the ball really well today and then when he was in trouble he sort of just got himself back in play. He rolls the ball beautifully on the greens. And the length he hits off the tee, you know, there are a lot of bunkers not in play which is a big advantage…”
Fairway bunkers were not the only thing Lamprecht successfully managed to avoid during his opening round. Oosthuizen, all 5ft10in of him, managed to clock his head on a low-hanging door frame as he walked out of the mixed zone area after completing his media duties. Lamprecht, arriving on the scene moments later, was told about his mentor’s mistake and warned to be careful.
“I got this,” he said as he stepped through. He certainly appears to.
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