The Open 2016: Sky Sports camera catches fire above golfers on the driving range as Royal Troon heats up

Things are heating up at Royal Troon

The Sky Sports cable camera catches fire above the Royal Troon Golf Course during The Open (Sky Sports)

Sky Sports have made it no secret that they’ve got exclusively live coverage of The Open for the first time. Sky Sports The Open has been created as a new channel, a 15-man-and-woman team at Royal Troon and coverage like you’ve never seen before are all part of what Sky are offering this weekend.

It’s all been a relative success too, although given the rain and high winds that have battered Troon on Friday, the last thing anyone will have expected was a fire.

That’s exactly what happened though as the overhead camera suddenly caught alight in what was a pretty catastrophic malfunction. While the remaining 154 players made their way around the prestigious Ayrshire course, the camera – which runs over the practice range on two lengths of cable – was burning brightly in the grey sky.

The camera wasn’t the only thing to be running red hot this week at Troon, as Phil Mickelson added to his record-equalling opening round of 63 with a hard-fought 69 to finish the day on two-under and lead the championship on -10.

Behind him, the chasing pack was beginning to find its feet, with Henrik Stenson carding a brilliant 65 in terrible conditions to head into the weekend on -9, just one shot off the lead.

Behind Stenson, both Soren Kjeldson and Keegan Bradley were a further two shots off, while the highest-placed Briton in Andrew Johnston recorded a second consecutive round of 69 to tie for eighth on -4.