Finally, ‘This’ Takes Center Stage At Open

Everything, indeed, has led to this. Photo: Richard Sellers, PA Images via Getty Images

ST. ANDREWS, SCOTLAND | The messaging of this 150th Open Championship – beyond the direct message R&A boss Martin Slumbers delivered to LIV Golf and its expatriates on Wednesday – is grand, but then so is the occasion.

“Everything Has Led To This” is splashed across grandstands, signage and pretty much any place else with room enough to bear the message.

On Thursday, “This” finally arrived.

If the Masters is a spring party, the PGA Championship a nod to the game’s abundant working class and the U.S. Open a root canal in soft spikes, this Open Championship feels like a global golf festival.

The closer it gets to Sunday afternoon and someone being presented the Claret Jug, the more the tightening pressure will be felt, conjuring up the ghosts and the grandeur that hang over the Old Course like the heavy sea air.

But on Thursday, with the wind more rumor th...