The Open fourth round is underway at Royal Birkdale, but one star in action hasn't been able to escape being mistaken for Liverpool great Steven Gerrard
Ryan Gerard
Ryan Gerard (Image: (Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images))
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Open star Ryan Gerard has revealed he has been mistaken for Steven Gerrard during his rounds at Royal Birkdale. Gerard is in contention for the Claret Jug ahead of his fourth and final round getting underway on Sunday afternoon.
But the American has been having to contend with much more than the Birkdale course this week, as a few local youngsters spotted the name 'Gerard' on the scoreboard. Although spelt differently, that hasn’t stopped Gerard from receiving plenty of attention thanks to having the same surname of the Liverpool great Steven Gerrard.
"I think some of the kids think I am Steven Gerrard,” he said, laughing. “It's like a Tony Romo situation, played football and then tried to play professional golf.
"Yeah, there's quite a few songs. I think some of them I can't repeat. The lads were out in full force today. It's nice to know I'm probably the most hated person in Manchester, and I'm glad we're in Liverpool. It's been a lot of fun.
“Yeah, it's kind of funny; it's not even spelled the same, but I'll take it. I'll take any support that we can from across-the-pond folks.”
Gerard, though, has stopped short of signing autographs as Steven Gerrard, revealing: “No, I'm signing Ryan. Maybe I need to work on my Steven signing. A bunch of little kids think I'm Steven Gerrard, so it's okay.”
Ryan Gerard during his third round at Royal Birkdale
Ryan Gerard during his third round at Royal Birkdale(Image: (Warren Little/Getty Images))
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Gerard is tied for fourth in the leaderboard, after scoring a third round 69 yesterday, to go with the two 67s he scored on Thursday and Friday.
He said: “I think 62 was a ridiculously good score given some of those pin placements. Wind kind of picked up at some point, I think probably a little bit before we teed off, but kind of stayed strong throughout the day.
“Conditions got firm. The margin between good shot and bad shot got increasingly thin.Didn't really hit too many quality shots on the front and kind of just hung tough, stuck to the strategy, kind of stayed patient, and finally got a putt to go in on 13.
“I was able to get one up-and-down on 14 and turned kind of a weird one into something positive in the round. Pleased with how we kind of stayed poised all day.”
Before he added: I think the fairways are kind of maxed out on how fast they're running. I don't think they're going to start releasing too much more.
"You could kind of see a difference maybe Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, but once it hits a certain point, I think they're not really going to get any more brown. I think it's as brown as brown gets.
"The ball is going to roll as far as it rolls and that's kind of going to be that in the fairways."