Brian Harman maintains five-shot lead at The Open as Jon Rahm sparkles

American Brian Harman will take a commanding five-shot lead into the final round of the 151st Open Championship, after holding the chasing pack firmly at bay at Royal Liverpool, while Rory McIlroy was in no mood to speak afterwards.

The Holywood golfer failed to capitalise on an electric start to leave his hopes of ending his major drought all but over as he trails Harman, who is on 12-under par, by nine strokes.

The other Irish player to make the cut, Padraig Harrington, is towards the tail-end of the field after a third-round 73 left him on five-over par.

At the other end of the leaderboard, Masters champion Jon Rahm claimed he felt "invincible" as he surged through the field with a record-breaking 63, but that adjective could equally apply to Harman as he remained on course for a maiden major title at the age of 36.

As crowd favourites Tommy Fleetwood and McIlroy frustratingly failed to fire, Harman recovered from a shaky start to compile a third round of 69.

Fleetwood was part of a five-way tie for fourth on five under which included Ryder Cup team-mate Viktor Hovland and former world number one Jason Day.

Rahm only made the cut with a shot to spare following rounds of 74 and 70, but took advantage of unexpectedly benign conditions to card eight birdies in a flawless 63, just one shot outside the lowest score in major championship history.

The world number three is the first player to shoot lower than 65 in an Open at Hoylake and had closed to within four shots of halfway leader Harman just two minutes before the left-hander got his round under way.

The gap was down to two when Harman dropped shots at the first and fourth, but he responded superbly with birdies on the fifth, ninth, 12th and 13th to maintain the five-shot