SOUTHPORT, England — There are only so many players who will get the chance to experience Tommy Fleetwood’s reality this week: Standing ovations at every green, crowds so dense that bottlenecks are inevitable, and the surreal but inescapable feeling of an entire town’s support.Southport’s very own golfer is playing in his home Open Championship at Royal Birkdale. It is a sight to behold, even for the man himself.“Life is all about experiences, and I think I’ve had some of the best experiences of my life so far this week,” Fleetwood said after his third-round 69 to reach 5-under for the tournament, five shots behind leader Sam Burns headed into Sunday’s round.Fleetwood could not shake a smile as he spoke to the media on Saturday evening, despite two bogeys in the last four holes. He snuck onto this links course as a teenager. All of this excitement comes just six miles down the road from his alma mater, Scarisbrick Hall, with his entire family and so many friends scattered around the property. Dozens of uniform-clad children enrolled in the local Tommy Fleetwood golf academy are roaming around somewhere, too.Can you blame him for the hyperbole? It’s been just as much of a spectacle for those who got a front row seat.“It felt like a Ryder Cup, but for one guy,” Jordan Spieth, Fleetwood’s Friday playing partner, told The Athletic. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything else like that.”Fleetwood’s reception on the Merseyside coast and among Birkdale’s rolling, sandy dunes is a beautiful rarity in this game — one you’d bottle up if you could.Why is this golf course’s bunker shaped like a donut?Gabby Herzig and Lauren Morales-JonesWalking up the 18th fairway on Saturday evening, Fleetwood removed his cap and entered an arena that greeted him as though he was already their champion, not a man moments from putting for bogey. Even better, he did it while strolling alongside one of his oldest Southport friends — Ian Finnis, his caddie — who just took it all in. The movie-script scenes, coupled with the constant variations of “Tommylad!” and “C’mon Tommy!” shouted around every corner of this property, have been non-stop at Royal Birkdale.