Tom Lewis receives encouragement from the veteran Tom Watson during the second round of the Open. Photograph: Andrew Boyers/Action ImagesAn Open moves with bruising speed but a still picture best described the Tom-Tom show. On the 16th green, Tom Lewis stood motionless over a putt while Tom Watson stood 15 feet away studying his young namesake with intense paternal concern. Sun lit the scene, the sky shimmered blue and all the ages of golf were united.
Striding off the green, Lewis extended his hand to a random boy of around 14 and pressed a gift into his palm. The lucky lad opened his fingers to find Lewis's golf ball. Delight rendered him speechless. From communing with the 61-year-old Watson, winner of five Open Championships, Lewis was connecting with someone closer to his own age on a day when few were left in any doubt about his potential to thrive in this most sadistic of games.
Eerie is the only way to characterise the throwing together of Old and Young Tom for 36 holes at Royal St George's. The young amateur takes his first name from the mellow-eyed legend. His brother, who was here, owes his moniker to Jack Nicklaus. If their father Bryan thought name-plagiarism was a quick route to fame he could claim vindication as the two Toms pursued their parallel paths across Kent.
Watson struck his second hole-in-one in major championships, with a four-iron at the 178-yard 6th, and Lewis shot a four- over-par 74 following his first-round 65: the lowest first-day score by an amateur in the 151-year history of the Open. In summery conditions he bogeyed the 4th, 6th, 12th, 17th and 18th and landed his only birdie on 13. This was nearly the best moment on the walk, he said, but there was one better: "Walking down the fairway with Tom on 7, with him giving me his tips on how he's won and the courses he's enjoyed is definitely the highlight of my career so far."
Those five bogies distort the tale of Lewis's second round. This was a display of grace under pressure, of courage in the face of spectacular overnight duress. In bed, his phone had beeped incessantly until he switched it to silent. In the morning he woke to 80 texts and "a lot more Facebook apps" – the new measure, one supposes, of cultural recognition.
Scanning his wardrobe, Lewis rejected sobriety in favour of a polo shirt that featured white, blue and turquoise sashes in the style of a 1970s football team. Blending in and hoping not to be noticed were not his aims. There was still no sign of his dad, who says he is too nervous to watch, so it fell to Watson to offer a kind of parental support and the galleries to help him through the many edgy moments that were bound to afflict the round.
"The crowd out there kept me going. If it was an amateur event where no one is watching I probably would have slipped away more," Lewis said. The swarms who followed him could sense the precariousness of his position and offered all they could to keep him on the path of romance. To head into Saturday one under after 36 holes remains a badge of honour for a youngster from Welwyn Garden City who claimed an Open place in final qualifying with rounds of 63 and 65 at Rye.
"If you asked me that two days ago, I'd have taken it, but at the moment it doesn't feel so good," he said. "I didn't putt very well. I didn't get the pace of the greens. I felt they were quicker and when I did hit it hard it went past quite a long way and when it came up short it was way short. I had to limit the damage and I felt there was loads of it out there. It would be nice to win the silver medal [for the leading amateur] and try to finish in the top 15."
The main damage was inflicted on the last two greens. Lewis bogeyed the 17th then fired his second shot at the last off the back of the putting surface, where it cracked into a wooden post and landed on a gravel path. The indignity was lifted by a fine scuffed chip shot to within seven feet of the flag but his putt for par slipped past. A smack of his putter head with the ball and a long rub of the face spoke of his annoyance at not finishing the round with a show of authority.
Senior Tom led the group up the 18th, still basking in his ace at the 6th, which reprised his hole in one at the 1980 US Open at Baltusrol, and showed Lewis, whose father idolised the old master, the role played by individual brilliance in the making of great careers. Inspiration is delivered best not through whimsy or fireside tales but ecstatic practical demonstration.
"He's good – he's a fine player, he really is," Watson, who was two over after 36 holes, said of Lewis. "He's got strength, he's got a wonderful putting touch, pitching touch. He flights the ball very well. He has a very good complement of shots in his bag already as a 20-year-old, and that's what you look for. Tom Lewis played a wonderful game yesterday. Today he missed a few shots, got the ball going off line a little bit a few times.
"I think the most important advice is, don't get too complicated in your life. You can get it very complicated by adding a lot of people and a lot of things in your mind. You don't need the clutter."
A warning to his new young friend, there, to keep the laser sharpness in those eyes.
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