Earlier this month, English sports fans briefly allowed themselves to believe in sporting success. The national soccer team was in the final of the European Championship. The Three Lions were playing on home soil. Football was coming home.

Then, abruptly, it wasn’t. A devastating loss in a penalty shootout reminded sports fans just what it means to be English: long waits for success interspersed with soul-crushing defeats.

As it turns out, one miniscule group of people who don’t play soccer understood precisely how much it hurts to go decades without a trophy in a sport the country obsesses over. They’re known as English professional golfers. 

And days after the soccer team’s failure against Italy, they have a chance to lift the national morale—at least a little. What if an Englishman actually won a British Open in England?

Even if it’s not coming home, it can still come home to Sandwich. 

This year’s British Open, at Royal St. George’s Golf Club in Sandwich, England, is another opportunity for the country to end another historic dry spell. It has been 29 years since Nick Faldo became the last English golfer to win the Open. And it has been a ghastly 52 years—when a group of young Liverpudians called the Beatles were still together—since an Englishman won the Open in England, back in 1969. That’s three years after English soccer’s last major-tournament win at the 1966 World Cup. 

So when English golfers watched English soccer players fall at the last hurdle, they could empathize all too well. 

“I know what it feels like to come very, very close to your dream and not achieve it,” Tommy Fleetwood said this week. 

That was just two years ago, in the last British Open. Fleetwood finished second behind Shane Lowry. But he knew that claiming the Claret Jug there might not have carried much national significance. That’s because the fans of this particular British Open weren’t even cheering for him. 

The 2019 tournament was held at Royal Portrush Golf Club in Northern Ireland and Fleetwood was dueling with an Irishman. The local fans had a clear favorite, and it wasn’t Fleetwood. 

“The one time I was in the final group on Sunday was probably the one time I won’t have the crowd on my side,” he said. 

He’s also keenly aware of what winning in England would mean. He grew up within an hour of three different courses that host the Open. What nobody can seem to figure out is why the golfers who grew up playing on these courses, and others links like them, can’t actually seem to win this major. 

Two Englishmen—Justin Rose at the U.S. Open and Danny Willett at the Masters—have won majors in recent years. Yet the player who explains this phenomenon is someone who hasn’t won a single major. Lee Westwood has been an elite golfer for a couple decades and was even the world No. 1. If Westwood doesn’t win this weekend, though, he would set the mark for most major starts without winning one. 

“That’s nice, that record,” Westwood said. “It shows I’ve been a good player for a long, long time.”

Justin Rose chats with his caddie on the 3rd tee at Royal St George’s Golf Club.

Justin Rose chats with his caddie on the 3rd tee at Royal St George’s Golf Club.

Photo: Richard Sellers/Zuma Press

Meanwhile, seemingly every country England used to rule over has won the Open in England. There have been winners from the United States, Northern Ireland, South Africa, Ireland, Australia, Spain and Scotland since Tony Jacklin’s triumph in 1969. 

There are a handful of Englishmen actually in contention so far. Rose, Willett, Andy Sullivan and Jack Senior finished the first round tied for ninth place at 3-under-par. Fleetwood and Paul Casey ended the opening day at 2-under.   

“Listen,” Rose said, “the lads can do it.” 

Just like last weekend, there is Italian danger lurking for these Englishmen.

The 2018 champion Francesco Molinari is at 2-under after Thursday’s play.

Write to Andrew Beaton at andrew.beaton@wsj.com and Joshua Robinson at Joshua.Robinson@wsj.com