Nine years is how you'll hear it described. Three thousand, two hundred and sixty-four days and counting, up to an even 3,270 come Sunday. That's how long he has waited, that's how long he has made us wait. When Rory McIlroy captured the PGA Championship one month after he'd won the Open right here at Hoylake, nobody could have reasonably argued that those four majors he'd gathered in little more than three years would be his lot.
This is a dramatic and in some ways improper way of measuring the supposed failing of one of the best golfers of his generation, one who will be remembered a hundred years from now, never mind nine. The reality is that there are four tournaments of historical significance for every one trip round the sun. It is a nine-year wait, but it's those single days which each are worth three months that have us where we are now.
Sunday April 8, 2018, when he lost out to Patrick Reed at Augusta. Sunday July 17, 2022, when he hit every green from the lead but let slip the Claret Jug at St Andrews. Sunday June 18, 2023, when one man, Wyndham Clark, took one shot less than he did in the US Open. Days on the calendar, scars on a resolute character. McIlroy should have won one or two of these and could have won all three.
Now, he has one last opportunity to put an end to it all, to spare us the debate, to stop us counting in years before we go back from nine and start again at one. One decade, should it come to pass, is too long. The greatest players deserve the respect which underpins the highest standards and the harshest criticism. Perhaps they also deserve our faith.
McIlroy certainly has the faith of the betting and why wouldn't he after what he did on Sunday. Standing on the 17th tee having just missed a short birdie putt at the last real birdie hole, he hit two of the finest approach shots you will see, the kind which give lie to the idea that this is a player who must be able to hit it high and land it softly to produce world-class golf. Note that he has more Open top-fives than he does any of the other three majors, including at a rock-hard Carnoustie.
Some will argue that he's peaked too soon but there's no reason he should agree. Two of the last 10 Open champions had won on their previous start, Scottie Scheffler did it in the Masters, and Jon Rahm as good as did it in the US Open, when he'd been six clear before Covid intervened prior to the final round of the Memorial. For the best players in golf, wins have often come in bunches. McIlroy will recall that the gap from major number three to major number four was a matter of weeks and took in more silverware in a high summer hat-trick.
There are two other factors that may just have turned in his favour: the weather and the shape of Royal Liverpool, stretched to a par 71 which isn't far short of 7,400 yards, and whose back-nine is the longest in Open history. The course is much greener than had been anticipated during a red-hot May and dry June by England's standards. Rain at the weekend and more in the forecast mean that suddenly, this looks a lot more like 2014 than it does 2006, the year that Tiger Woods hit just one driver and plotted his way to victory at a firm and fast Hoylake.
Among my selections for this event last year at a time when very much the face of the emerging LIV Golf, Johnson finished sixth to enhance what's a fine Open record. Five top-10s in 13 should read six, as he was inside the top five here at Hoylake in 2014 only to drop three shots over the final two holes, one of those to find the internal out-of-bounds at the par-five 18th especially costly.
That nevertheless was a good indication that Johnson has the game for Hoylake, particularly when it isn't as firm as had been the case previously. His second-round 65 is a score nobody has bettered in an Open at this course and it took him into contention behind McIlroy, at a time remember when he was considered golf's nearly-man rather than the two-time major champion he is today.
Perhaps more revealing when it comes to his prospects of hitting the frame is how often Johnson has given himself a chance in this major. No fewer than 11 times he's started the final round inside the top 30, and you can count the Opens of 2010, 2011, 2014, 2017 and 2022 as renewals in which he teed off on Sunday with a somewhat realistic chance to win. On three other occasions (2013, 2015, 2021) that's been true ahead of Saturday's third round.
Spieth could reasonably claim to be the best Open Championship player in this field, perhaps with the exception of McIlroy and one or two veterans, having made the cut on all nine appearances dating back to his 2013 debut.
Fourth in 2015 paved the way for his thrilling victory at Birkdale two years later, and he was favourite and 54-hole leader when defending that title at Carnoustie before settling for ninth. On course to place again in 2019, another poor final round saw him fall to 20th, but he's been back on track with second and eighth in the last two years.
Winner in stunning fashion at Portrush, Lowry has since confirmed himself a superb majors golfer, contending for the Masters in 2022 and generally producing something approaching his best. All told he has 10 top-25 finishes in 14 starts as a major champion, his current run standing at five and including the Open, where he's been 12th and 21st.
Lowry was also ninth here in 2014, his first top-10 in a major championship. He closed with a round of 65, one of just four players to shoot seven-under all week (Hoylake played to a par of 72; the 10th has now been changed to a par four), and played beautifully as the world number 68 who had prepared similarly in Scotland.
It's been a fine season for Canadian golf in general with Nick Taylor (another for whom a case be made) winning their national championship after Mackenzie Hughes and Conners himself had won titles of their own, and Brooke Henderson kicked off with a victory on the LPGA Tour, too.
Conners' win came in Texas thanks to a typically assured ball-striking display and he's been generally excellent since. Most notable of course was a contending 12th at the US PGA, where he was in front prior to a late disaster in round three, while more recently he has three top-20s in his last four starts.
One of them came last week, where he shot 65 in round two and 66 in tough conditions on Sunday, a performance not dissimilar to that produced by Cam Smith a year ago. They are though very different golfers and the main worry with Conners, second in fairways up in Scotland, is that his short-game is not as sharp as is typically required to win this.
Prior to that, Matsuyama had been 13th in the Travelers to extend a run of good form which dates right back to fifth place at Sawgrass. In eight stroke play starts from one to the other, only once did he finish outside the top 30, and that by a single stroke when ranking 65th in putting at the US Open.
In fact Matsuyama's majors in 2023 have all been frustratingly similar. He was 16th in the Masters when producing a top-five tee-to-green display, 29th in the PGA when ranking eighth in that department, and 32nd in the US Open when ranking sixth. He's the only player in the sport bar Scheffler to have ranked inside the top 10 in all three.
Now if all this sounds oh so very Matsuyama, that's fine, but not for a very long time has he been this kind of price. Ignore what happened in a soft shootout in Detroit, one he probably didn't really want to play in, and it's astonishing that one of the best ball-strikers in the sport could be dangled at close to 100/1 to win the Open.
Kirk has a dynamite short-game, ranking 14th in strokes-gained around the green, but in truth every aspect of his game has fired this year. Though by no means a long driver he's gained strokes off the tee, he's 53rd in putting, and his iron play remains of a top-40 standard which makes him among the top 20 percent on the PGA Tour.
He showcased his scrambling skills when 19th on his Open debut here at Hoylake, shooting 68-69 across the weekend, and following a couple of narrow missed cuts did well to climb from 119th after day one to a respectable share of 42nd at the far less suitable St Andrews last July.
Since then Kirk has been 23rd in the Masters and 29th in the US PGA, performances similar to those he'd produced prior to coming here in 2014, and he's been back to form of late with finishes of 14th and 21st on the PGA Tour including when seeing his travelling housemate Sepp Straka capture the John Deere Classic.
It's easy to underestimate form in these very different US events but they were a fine way for Francesco Molinari to prepare, ditto Spieth and Zach Johnson, but the form line I really like comes from February when Kirk won the Honda Classic at the expense of Eric Cole.
That event has been won by McIlroy, Els, Harrington, Adam Scott and Rickie Fowler, each of them Open winners or runners-up. Fleetwood could've won it in 2020 as could Mackenzie Hughes, who contended for the Open in 2021, while Lowry was close to doing so in 2022.
It's always been a really good pointer towards golfers who can cope with tough, breezy conditions, and we saw further evidence of that through Cole, Brian Harman, Ben An, David Lingmerth and more last week in Scotland.
Kirk is ranked 40th in the world having been up to 32nd following that play-off success and he's a tough, experienced player, with a fine short-game, some course form, and a chance of squeezing into the money after preparing with some links golf at West Lancs on Sunday.
While that was happening, while players not involved in the Scottish Open completed their own preparations, McIlroy somehow did the one thing that could further enhance the sense that this might be where he finally gets his fifth major. It wasn't enough to win – McIlroy had to produce the kind of drama that, along with his absurd talent, helped make the boy from Holywood a golfing superstar.
Perhaps on Sunday that superstar will be back where be belongs, forcing us all to set our personal financial interests to one side and remember what really matters. This is the final men's golf major of 2023 and there is one cast-iron certainty: we're in for a thriller.
Posted at 1700 BST on 17/07/23