Our Sunday morning begins, as most mornings have at this brilliant Australian Open, with a strong flat-white and Rory McIlroy.

The great man is out amongst it at 10:02 with American Matt McCarty and Stefano Mazzoli who you would not be surprised to find is from Italy, in a group that’s become "marquee" like David Beckham turning out for LA Galaxy, like Usain Bolt playing for Central Coast Mariners. 

And the galleries, as they have been all week, are three and four deep lining the fairways, five and six deep surrounding the greens. There are people in banana outfits. There are people in the trees.

And every hole, every shot, they urge him on, “C’mon, Rory!”, "Goodonya, Rory!" The man could be walking down the main street of Ballynahinch if that village in County Down was populated solely by Australians, and they had a parade.

This parade includes a Tiger-like entourage – journalists, photographers, TV types, influencers, security, plain clothes security (you can’t see them, that’s how good they are), rules officials, and dozens of lanyard wearers including a garrulous group of corporate types in happy pastel pants.

And the great McIlroy, on the edge of becoming "our Rors", as he said he would on occasion in his press conference the day before, is going for it. And it is thrill-a-minute.

The brilliant par-4 sixth hole at Royal Melbourne sports an amphitheatre of dreams. PHOTO: Getty Images

He bombs it out there on two, stiffs a nine-iron, makes a birdie. On the third, one of Royal Melbourne East’s very cool par-fours, he bombs it into the gully front, wafts onto the green, makes another birdie.

And there is a semblance, a ripple, an itching of the collective pants of the people – he couldn’t, could he? He’s seven shots back with 16 to play … surely the great man does not have 62 in him? Or something lower again?

Of course, he does not – he’s from Holywood not Hollywood. But he gives plenty to the people, to the multitudes who've camped out among the ferns and prickle bushes to see the famous man who won the Masters.

He shaves the hole with putts on five and six, and the people say “Oooh”. And you think: this is brilliant theatre in a theatre of turf, with its amphitheatre backdrops, its glorious possibilty. Royal Melbourne is possibility. Every hole, every shot, there could be guts, glory, tragedy, comedy.  

PLUS...

Cleary: McIlroy shoots 68 as the golf gods go crazy

Rory McIlroy has battled heat, wind, rain, clutching ti-tree and children squealing like banshees for his autograph. Yet nothing in his long career could have prepared him for what the golf gods threw at him in round three of the Australian Open at Royal Melbourne.

Comedy? As you may have read, McIlroy had an airswing on Friday and on Saturday his ball was enveloped by a banana skin. That's a golf course that not only offers story, possibility, and all that, but which has an impish, even evil sense of humour.

Royal Melbourne ... you can run out of words for it. This golf course, this melange, this composition, this meeting of East and West, this glorious chunk of tight-cut, grassy détente, always offers story. It offers possibility. 

Put an Australian Open on it, put McIlroy on it, put Cameron Smith on it in the equal lead with five holes to play, and you cannot look away. It’s like the best Test cricket. Every play has weight. Every play has story.

Even Greg Norman shows up, drawn by limelight, by the siren song of RM, by the appeal of this great and refreshed national championship.

 

 

McIlroy will bogey seven, birdie eight, bogey nine, bogey ten. There will be no miracle. He makes birdie on the 17th with a sandie from further right than Phil Mickelson. He makes a birdie on 18 with a brilliant, slow-curling 12-footer in front of a jam-packed gallery of Australians who’ve just about adopted him.

It's clear he's feeling the love. If Shane Lowry doesn't come with him next year, even just for the craic, as they say, we'd be surprised. 

"It’s been absolutely amazing," McIlroy told media after play. "I’ve been excited to come back down here for a while. Obviously it’s been over 10 years since I played in the Australian Open and I guess look the scenes out there this week. The crowds, the golf course were absolutely incredible.

"I said at the start of the week, this is a golf tournament that’s got so much potential and I think it showed a little bit of that potential this week. I think there’s still a ways to go, but it’s shaping up to be an amazing finish.

"Also, I wish I could have been in contention and been coming down the stretch and battling with the boys, but it’s been an amazing week and can’t thank everyone in Australia up for the hospitality and the reception and can’t wait to come back next year."

Back atcha, champion.