Burns leads Open Championship as Fleetwood's Birkdale dream fades

At Royal Birkdale, a course steeped in championship memory, American Sam Burns stands alone at the summit of The Open Championship — a man who nearly didn't make the journey, now carrying history on his shoulders after posting the lowest two-round total in men's major golf. Behind him, a local son in Tommy Fleetwood chases a dream he has held since boyhood, while the field remains close enough to remind us that in golf, as in life, the final chapter is always the hardest to write.