The Rory McIlroy miracle shot that turned the Open on its head

It was, by a distance, the moment of this 150th Open so far. Resplendent in an emerald-green polo shirt, befitting this auspicious sporting weekend for the island of Ireland, Rory McIlroy confronted a bunker shot at the 10th so treacherous that he stepped away from the ball twice. 

Wary of a flier that might run and run on the glassy green, he knew his judgment needed to be immaculate. And so, channelling his ingrained sense of occasion, he holed it.

Rory. McIlroy.#The150thOpen pic.twitter.com/ZgVKfXf8ie

The roar was loud enough to travel across the Tay Estuary. McIlroy, a born thespian, delivered an extravagant fist-pump. Even Scottie Scheffler, preparing to drive on the 11th tee, was compelled to put his club down and applaud. The scene, you felt, encapsulated the spirit of McIlroy, a player who, through a mixture of technical mastery and overt emotion, electrifies any tournament he enters.

Vast St Andrews galleries found themselves gripped by his every move. There was a reason why McIlroy’s tip of the cap to a departing Tiger Woods had seemed like a passing of the flame: the four-time major champion is, in his idol’s absence, the one player from whom pure theatre is guaranteed. 

Take this year’s Masters, where he signed off his closing 64 in trademark style, splashing out from a greenside bunker and celebrating deliriously as the ball tracked into the hole.

There is one crucial difference, though, between the two bunker shots that have defined 2022 for McIlroy at the majors. At Augusta, he was always pursuing a forlorn hope of reining in a hard-charging Scheffler. But the mood on the Old Course has been palpably different all week, the crowds sensing that this was his finest chance yet of ending an eight-year wait for