Brown leads English contingent hoping to 'bring home' The Open

Brown leads English contingent hoping to 'bring home' The OpenImage source, Getty ImagesImage caption, England's Dan Brown and his Korean playing partner Im Sung-jae are tied second after Thursday's first round at the OpenByJonathan JurejkoBBC Sport golf reporter at Royal BirkdalePublished17 minutes ago6 CommentsThe 154th Open Championship first-round leaderboard:-5 J Suber (US), -4 D Brown (Eng), Im (Kor)-3 T Detry (Bel), R MacIntyre (Sco), F Molinari (Ita), A Smalley (US), B DeChambeau (US), R Gerard (US), MJ Daffue (SA), P Coody (US), C Young (US)Full leaderboardThere is still a good chance that 'It's Coming Home' this weekend.When England's hopes of winning the World Cup were extinguished on Wednesday, it paved the way for the nation's top golfers to take centre stage and lift the mood of the Royal Birkdale crowd.No English player has won The Open for 34 years, when Sir Nick Faldo triumphed at Muirfield. You have to go back to 1969 for the last English winner on English soil - Tony Jacklin at Royal Lytham & St Annes.But step forward Dan Brown.The 31-year-old from Yorkshire shot a four-under 66 early on day one of the 154th Open Championship, to sit one behind another unheralded player, American leader Jackson Suber, as he took advantage of scoreable early conditions on the Merseyside links."It's only Thursday but hopefully I'm in a sort of similar area on the leaderboard come Sunday," Brown said.No golfer wins the Open after 18 holes - or any other tournament for that matter - but they sure can put themselves out of contention.Local hero Tommy Fleetwood, who hails from nearby Southport, did exactly that when Birkdale last hosted the Open in 2017 with an opening round of six over. This year, Fleetwood was determined to make amends and scrapped to a solid one-under 69 which means he has plenty to build on over the next three days.Day one of the Open as it happenedWhich Open golfer are you?Publish...