They stood by a clock on the 12th tee, waiting for the group ahead of them to clear the green. Viktor Hovland leaned back with his arms folded as Rory McIlroy straightened up, a smile on his face.
The clock said it was twenty-seven minutes past six, but it is approaching midnight for golf and even in St Andrews, amid so much beauty and history, everyone knows it.
McIlroy and Hovland had been engaged in a massive battle at the top of the standings all afternoon and then the lead switched between them and Hovland leaped forward with a brilliant putt and McIlroy retrieved him by hollowing out for an eagle from a box bunker on 10th on the greenside, it felt like this match, pure and unforgiving, was sport at its best.
Rory McIlroy (left) and Viktor Hovland (right) lead the pack for the final day on Sunday
But every tournament in golf now – especially every Major – is laced with the great fear that maybe the sport won’t be like this for much longer and that we’re coming to the end of something.
It is being torn apart by the Saudi-backed LIV series and the lure of some of the best players in the world by huge entry fees and guaranteed prize money. The crisis is already underway and it will get worse.
There are rumors that LIV will announce more big-name recruits in its ranks next week and uncertainty is everywhere. What if whoever wins The Open on Sunday is revealed as one of the next secessionists?
Imagine the blow that would strike the golf establishment. What if the next announcement deals another blow to the Ryder Cup? LIV keeps coming in wave after wave. How much more can golf have? Are we about to enter an Asterisk era in golf when many of the world’s best players are banned from playing in Majors for their allegiance to LIV?
The Northern Irishman has ruthlessly challenged the controversial Saudi-backed LIV tour
Are we about to enter an era where the Majors are devalued and the standards of greatness are diluted and the only numbers that matter are how much you paid to sell your soul?
Against that background, every Major now feels like a battle for the soul of golf, a battle in the garden of good and evil in the sport. And against that backdrop, it feels like golf has never needed McIlroy more to break through its eight-year great drought than it needs him at the Home of Golf this weekend, amid all the celebrations surrounding this 150th Open Championship.
In recent months, McIlroy has increasingly come to represent all that is good about the sport. He has spoken passionately about the importance of its history and how golfers should be a part of that history so that their careers have meaning beyond just money.
He has asked how much money golfers need to be happy when they are already rich beyond their dreams.
And when you get a day like Saturday, when the sun shines on the waters of the Eden Estuary and the wide swath of West Sands Beach stretches into the distance and McIlroy and Hovland trade battle for battle in their quest for the Claret Jug and some of the greatest golfers on the planet behind them, it seems pertinent to wonder why you would want to ruin this with greed.
And so the huge galleries that followed McIlroy around the Old Course chased him on and nearly tore the sky asunder when that bunker shot on the 10th bounced and rolled up the hill and fell into the hole, catapulting McIlroy into the lead.
A win at The 150th Open on Sunday would break McIlroy’s eight-year drought without a Major
Phil Mickelson, who missed the cut, has proven to be the face of Saudi-backed LIV tour
Even the Masters champion, Scottie Scheffler, another golf club diamond, grinned at the theater as he stood on the 11th tee.
Earlier in the round, R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers had joined the crowd that followed the Northern Irishman and Norwegian around the track, another symbol of McIlroy’s importance to the establishment.
Golf can’t rely on Tiger Woods, who missed the cut here this week, to be his banner forever and as his fame fades, and pretenders like Brooks Koepka take the LIV money, it’s become clear that McIlroy now the jewel in golf’s crown.
It’s not yet time for McIlroy to man the barricades alone, but he sees other leading golfers being picked almost every week.
He is rumored to have turned down dazzling amounts of money to join the LIV series, just like Woods. And while the two major tours have McIlroy, they still have a prestige and kudos that the arrivals at LIV can’t match.
And when McIlroy topped the standings later in the third round, after taking the straight lead with a birdie in 14th, there was a certain relief that LIV’s best player, Dustin Johnson, slipped from the top into the back nine. .
McIlroy asked how much money golfers need to be happy when several flock to the LIV tour
He had been within a shot of McIlroy earlier in the afternoon, but by the time he finished his round he was six shots adrift. That will be a relief for the R&A. The prospect of an LIV figurehead winning the most famous golf tournament at a time when the competition for the sport rages on would be too much for some at the top of the sport.
LIV needs every public relations win it can get and one of its players winning a Major would be a huge boost. Instead, after firing a shot on the 17th, it was McIlroy who advanced in a share of the lead with Hovland just after 8pm on the 18th.
It was McIlroy who carried the torch for the game and its history and its traditions and its credibility as he moved within 18 holes of what would be the most significant win of his career and one of the most significant moments in the history of the sport. .
McIlroy and Hovland will be the last couple to go out on Sunday to continue their duel for one more round. McIlroy will be cast as the defender of the faith, the man who needs golf to win, the man who has become the conscience of the sport and the most popular player.
LIV thinks it can buy anything and anyone, but after the drama that unfolded in St Andrews on Saturday, we know it can’t buy this.