The 6ft 8in student looking down on Open’s big names
Christo Lamprecht won at Amateur Championship but showed he is a threat to the professionals on Wirral links
At 6ft 8in in his socks, Christo Lamprecht is used to being looked up to – just not by the best golfers in the world. Not until yesterday, at any rate. The likes of Rory Mcilroy, Scottie Scheffler and the rest may have to start getting used to craning their necks because the 22-yearold South African, a student at Georgia Tech, is beginning to loom large on their horizon.
A brilliant first-round 66 at Hoylake saw Lamprecht, who won the 128th Amateur Championship at Hillside a few weeks ago to qualify, rocket to the top of the Open leaderboard. He is not expected to stay there, of course. The last amateur to win the Open was Bobby Jones 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. Even Bryson Dechambeau, who knows a thing or two about big hitting, was moved to sidle up to Lamprecht after observing the speed of his swing in practice this week.
What did he say? “He just wished he had my length, I guess,” Lamprecht smiled in the mixed zone after completing his round. “No, I don’t know. Hitting it far is not what I think golf is all about. 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 yesterday, the longest in the field. And he admitted he was holding back. “I can get it to carry 340 yards, but I don’t want to,” he said. “Not in this weather. Not in links golf. It rolls far enough.”
The South African gave a charmingly leftfield interview after his round, happy to field questions about everything from his shoe size (“pretty average, a US13, 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 No1 favourite.”).
Perhaps he should try to book a game with 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 6ft 7in. Lamprecht laughed. The height-based questions kept coming. Was everyone in his family tall? “My dad is 6ft 4in and he’s the shortest of the last five generations,” he smiled. “My grandfather was like 6ft 8in and great-grandfather like 7ft.”
Has he ever played anyone taller? “Tommy Morrison. He is a freshman at Texas, 6ft 10in. I recently looked up to him and he’s like, ‘Hey. big guy’. I was like, ‘OK, 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 yesterday and knows him better than most. It was through Oosthuizen’s academy in South Africa that Lamprecht first emerged aged 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 just got himself back in play. He rolls the ball beautiful 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 yesterday. Oosthuizen, all 5ft 10in of him, managed to clock his head on a lowhanging 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 mishap and warned to be careful.
“I got this,” he said as he stepped through. He certainly appears to.