Tommy Fleetwood, who grew up minutes from Royal Birkdale, where the Open is being played, was asked about the dream possibility of winning the Open Sunday, the same day England would play the World Cup final if it defeats Argentina Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat would be a great day,\u201d Fleetwood said. \u201cI\u2019d rather tee off late on Sunday [meaning he\u2019s near the lead] for sure. I\u2019ll start with that.<\/p>\n
![\"Tommy](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/royal-birkdale-golf-club-southport-134342992.jpg\")
England\u2019s Tommy Fleetwood during practice on Tuesday. REUTERS<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, the lads have been doing great,\u201d he said of the English side. \u201cIt\u2019s been great to watch. The World Cup\u2019s not easy. For those guys, they definitely carry a nation on their shoulders a lot more than we do. They\u2019ve been doing a great job, and it\u2019s great to have them in the semifinals again. We\u2019re a great team, so it\u2019s great to watch and great to have that positive hope.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know a few of the lads. I think they know that we\u2019re supporting. It\u2019s great to support individuals as well as the team. It\u2019s a nice feeling and nice to watch their success along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several of the English players, including Justin Rose and Matt Fitzpatrick, had been hoping for later tee times so they could stay up and watch the England match.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was kind of hoping for a later tee time,\u201d Rose said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf anyone\u2019s listening, it would be nice if all the English lads were late-early,\u201d Fitzpatrick said of first- and second-round tee times Thursday and Friday.<\/p>\n
![\"England's](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/2026-quarter-final-match-norway-134156663.jpg\")
Harry Kane of England during the FIFA World Cup 2026 quarterfinal match between Norway and England at Miami Stadium. Getty Images<\/p>\n
Two of the players didn\u2019t get their wish. Rose is teeing off at 9:36 a.m. Thursday and Fleetwood at 10:09 a.m. Fitzpatrick, however, drew a 3:15 p.m. tee time Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cActually, 9:36 isn\u2019t too bad unless England \u2026 actually, I\u2019d take a win on penalties if it happened, but obviously we\u2019re looking for a short, sharp match and a reasonable bedtime,\u2019\u2019 Rose said. \u201cObviously, we\u2019re going to be watching. But at the same time, I\u2019m going to watch it with an eye on what\u2019s important for me as well and not get too high and low and keep my own emotions in check.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got big things as well to do this week, but at the same time it\u2019s a match where if you think that you\u2019re not going to watch it, you\u2019re probably kidding yourself. I\u2019ll be rooting the boys on, but at the same time, trying to make sure I\u2019m able to sort of rest up pretty soon after the match.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
No Englishman has won a British Open in England since Tony Jacklin in 1969. Since Jacklin, only one Englishman has won the Open: Nick Faldo, who did it three times (1987, \u201990 and \u201992), all in Scotland.<\/p>\n
And England hasn\u2019t won a World Cup since 1966.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The thought of an Englishman winning the Open and, a short time later Sunday, England winning the World Cup is utterly tantalizing for the locals.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be mega,\u201d said Matt Wallace, one of 21 English players in the field.<\/p>\n
R&A chief executive Mark Darbon said should England make the final, the final round of the Open could be moved earlier to avoid an overlap with the World Cup final, which begins at 8 p.m. local time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SOUTHPORT, England \u2014 As important as the British Open is to the 21 English players in the field…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[2635,44,56,714,8395,6181],"class_list":["post-36848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tommy-fleetwood","tag-british-open","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-tommy-fleetwood","tag-world-cup","tag-world-cup-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}