The Open 2018: Matthew Southgate pleased with opening round at 'second home' Carnoustie

The Englishman used his great experience to card an opening 69

Russell Knox and Grant Forrest may represent Scotland’s best hopes of winning the 147th Open Championship but what about a local favourite from somewhat further afield?

The last census pegged the population of Carnoustie at around 11,000 people, a number expected to more than quadruple every day this weekend as The Open takes over this sun-scorched corner of Angus.

But for England’s Matthew Southgate, who carded a first-round 69 to put himself in decent contention, this sleepy town that nods gently at the North Sea is something of a home away from home.

“What's nice for me is when you sort of walk to the local Chinese to pick up a take-away and bump into two, three people you know. It does feel like a second home. Dad's the same. There's not one pub in the town that we can't walk in and find someone with an old golf story and sit down and have a chat with. That's lovely for all of us.”

Southgate is born and bred in Essex and sounds every bit of it, but the Southend native has been a member at Carnoustie since receiving a membership for his 16th birthday - at the time a reward for cutting his handicap down to scratch from his golf-mad father.

Since then Southgate and Southgate Sr. have made regular trips up to play the links course and the 29-year-old estimates that as well as regularly visiting The Imperial Chinese takeaway on countless occasions, he has played the course dozens of times in his life, handing him as much of a local advantage as possible for somebody who is anything but.

“I must have played 50-odd rounds there or thereabouts and watched every day of a couple of Opens,” he said, still beaming from his first round 69 and ready to open up about his love affair with Carnoustie.

“I don't think you can know the course much better than I do. Still I don't know the greens by heart. I'd be lying if I knew every break on every putt, but I'm not far off it.

“I think the whole town know me and my dad. I think it's lovely. It's like a home away from home.

“Carnoustie is a completely individual place. I've played golf all around the world, and I've never seen anywhere like Carnoustie.

Southgate enjoyed a strong first round (REUTERS)

“It doesn't matter if you're the milkman or a lawyer, as soon as your golf clubs come out, you're all just equal and you're all square on the 1st tee, let's play golf.

“And I think they deserve a huge amount of credit for that, the lads up here, because they've kept the true etiquette of the game and the true spirit of the game, that raw sort of talent wins and good scores win, and they don't bitch and moan to each other. They just go head to head and play, and in the end shake hands in the right way.”

It was an early morning for Southgate who was in the second group to go out at 6.46am, and admitted he “felt like a zombie” for the first few holes. “I think it’s quite normal when you wake up a 4am to play golf.”

But would he have taken his round of two-under when he woke up all those hours ago?

“100 per cent. I think it's very easy for spectators to watch and just take for granted how tough this golf course is.

The Englishman started well (REUTERS)

“We're hitting irons off the tee to miss bunkers, and people think, oh, it's only an iron. But if you get it slightly wrong, you're right in the face of the bunker or in the rough with no second shot. It demands a lot out of your game. So anything in the 60s is fantastic, I think.”

How fantastic it is for Southgate will be determined in the coming days but he has a bank of local knowledge to tap into, the experience of playing the course and he has positioned himself for - whisper it - a tilt at the Claret Jug.

Southgate tied for 12th at Troon two years back and then for sixth at Birkdale a year ago. For a boy who dreamed of winning The Open at Carnoustie, reality and adulthood has softened the expectations of that 10-year-old child.

“I think, as a kid, I envisaged winning The Open. I envisaged me standing there with a Claret Jug,” he said.

“Now, being older, I don't. I see the professional that's got the ability to shoot four good scores on a really tough golf course, and some of them might just give you the Claret Jug. I don't think you can stand on the 1st tee and say, right, I'm going to win The Open this week. But you can stand on the first fairway and hit the first fairway and go from there and see what you get.

South Africa's Erik Van Rooyen also started the week well (AFP/Getty Images)

“It's the old cliche, ‘one shot at a time.’

“If you feel you're good enough to hit one shot at a time and hit good shots, and good shots end in good scores, and good scores beat good players.

So do I care that Rory and Tiger are playing? No. It's me on the golf course and shoot four good scores. I've got one out of the way today.”

Three more to go to make a 10-year-old Matthew Southgate’s dream come true, and to cheer a small corner of Essex as well as an unlikely but boisterous portion of Carnoustie’s locals.