The 31-year-old English pro Dan Brown has a lumberjack’s beard, a nicotine addiction and “about” 10 tattoos, three of which, behind his ear, that depict “little birds,” Brown said Thursday from Royal Birkdale. Maybe Brown should add three more to his collection, which would bring his tally to the same number of birds he made in the opening round of the 154th Open Championship. That’s six, for those of you not counting along at home, which helped Brown to a four-under 66 that has him just one off the first-round lead — while surely prompting at least a few American golf fans to ask their favorite LLM about the 136th-ranked player in the world.
Brown, who has won twice on the DP World Tour but spent this season largely on the PGA Tour, is from Northallerton, about a two-and-a-half drive northeast of Birkdale. He dropped out of college after just a few months to pursue his golf dreams, and not only is he not related to the famous author with whom he shares a name but he also has read none of that Dan Brown’s works, or at least he hadn’t as of two years ago.
We know this because this isn’t golfer Dan Brown’s first visit to the business end of an Open Championship leaderboard. At the 2024 edition at Royal Troon, Brown shot an opening 65 to take the solo lead before closing 72-73-74 to finish T10. “I am a bit of a realist,” Brown said at the halfway point that week in Scotland. “I know I’m not going to start getting ahead of myself and thinking that, ‘Oh, my God, I’m leading The Open’ or ‘I’m second in The Open’ or whatever. There’s still 36 holes left. I might have a good round tomorrow, and then I might have a stinky round on Sunday. You just don’t know.”
You don’t. Not ever in this crazy game. How else to explain how Brown blitzed Birkdale Thursday morning after missing his last four cuts and 10 cuts in his last 15 starts dating to January? After his round, Brown said he’s been striking the ball well but hasn’t been holing putts. That changed Thursday, when he picked up 2.31 shots on the field on the greens. Ironically, after hitting what Brown described as his best shot of the day — a 35-yard chip from knotty fescue long and left of the 13th green that left him 6 feet for par — he lipped out the ensuing putt.
Brown’s not one to berate himself, though. He’s a chill pill by pro-golfer standards, his ability to alleviate tension aided in part by an old-school habit he’s been unable to kick: smoking. “Sorry, mom,” Brown joked to the press Thursday. “I’m probably on like seven or eight a round.” He added, “Stress levels go up, then probably the more I end up having.”
Smoking is a rarity in the pro game’s upper ranks but not unheard of. Charley Hull lit the golf world ablaze when she signed autographs for young fans at the 2024 U.S. Women’s Open — with a dart dangling from her lips. (She has since quit.) John Daly burns through at least a couple of packs a day. Major winners Angel Cabrera and Darren Clarke enjoy a puff. Brown himself had a viral moment at the PGA Championship in May when he posed for a cheeky selfie with two fans, all three of them with cigarettes in their mouths. Brown said that his father was a smoker, adding, “I always told him when I was a kid to stop smoking and then he did stop and then I ended up starting.”
As for the other trait that sets Brown apart from most of his peers — his tats — he said he sees no further inking in his future. Which isn’t to say the same will be true for those in his circle. When Brown played the BMW International Open last year, he had a side bet with his then-caddie, Neil Crate. If Brown prevailed that week, Crate would submit to get some ink to commemorate the occasion. Brown won and Crate paid up, getting “70-65-65-66= 266(-22) Munich, 2025” inked on his right quad.
Among Brown’s own tattoos is several Arabic characters on the inner part of his left forearm. If Brown wins the Claret Jug on Sunday, the phrase’s meaning would prove particularly apt: “To the moon.”
