PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — It has always been this way and (ya hope!) always will be: By the Sunday morn of this great championship, the noise has abated and all that’s left is the golf.
This year’s playfield, the Dunluce course of Royal Portrush, a stunning example of pure linksland greatness, has stood upright as players have tried to take her down with the lethal weapons of modern golf. The leader — Scottie Scheffler, to nobody’s surprise — is 14 under par and even if the winning score gets to 18 under, that statement will hold true. Scheffler, 29 going on 39 and the winner of the PGA Championship in May, has a four-shot lead over Haotong Li of China. They will play in the final twosome, off at 2:30 p.m., British Summer Time.
Other players in the top-10 of this 153rd Open Championship include two from England (Matthew Fitzpatrick, Tyrrell Hatton), one from Northern Ireland (Rory McIlroy) and one from Scotland (Robert MacIntye). This is the third Open being played at Royal Portrush.
God save the Queen.
As a quick aside, there’s a charming little nine-holer in the shadows of Balmoral Castle, summer home of the royal family in the Scottish Highlands. The grounds are open to the public. If you get there, and if you like playing golf, get yer good self to Royal Dornoch, a rugged three-hour drive away. Golf here is about their golf, the pro game that gets so much attention, and ours, which gets about as much attention as it deserves.
McIlroy grew up 60 miles from here, learning the game at a workingman’s club called Holywood Golf Club. When he won the Masters in April, he became the sixth member of the career Grand Slam club. He’s an MBE (member of the British Empire) and a member of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club in St. Andrews. His golf skill has taken him to some interesting places, including the wooly and wild right rough of the 11th hole on Saturday after a shoved tee shot.
Heading to his ball, he was quite a sight, bounding along this course he clearly loves in his sparking white shoes. As soon as he stuck his ball from the gnarly deep rough, and launched another one, lost eons ago, in his follow-through. They say if you play long enough, you’ll do something you’ve never done before. McIlroy said that was a first for him.
He trails by six and has no chance of winning. Well, not no-chance no chance, but close to no chance. McIlroy said it best, Saturday night, speaking of Scheffler: “He doesn’t make mistakes.”
If Scheffler has a by-the-book Sunday, and shoots too-safe 71, and Li somehow can shoot the same score he shot on Thursday and Friday (67), that would mean a playoff. A four-hole playoff. And even in that scenario, it’s hard to imagine Scheffler, with all his experience in these things, not winning.
If Li somehow could do it? Jon Rahm said it well on Saturday: He would do for golf in China what Seve Ballesteros did for golf in Europe, what Hideki Matsuyama did for golf in Japan, what Se Ri Pak did for golf in Korea. It could mean a golf explosion in a country with 1.4 billion people.
But he would have to get past Scottie Scheffler, and Scottie Scheffler does not make mistakes. As a statement of fact, that is not true. But when you have a four-shot lead in golf’s oldest championship, and your first three rounds are 68, 64 and 67, it’s true enough.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com
