There’s only one fitting end to a brilliant summer: Rory must win the Open

If ever we retrace our lives, it is the footprints of summer we find stamped in our memory. Summer is the places been and forehands seen. Summer is museums of stone and cathedrals of grass (Wimbledon, Edgbaston and now the Royal Liverpool Golf Club). Summer is the promise of champions rising and so much falling: Wickets and putts, reputations and records.

In her 2000 song, Summerfling, k.d. lang sang “You, my friend, my new fun thing, my summer fling” and what else are elite athletes? This summer we’ve swooned over a bearded Ben Stokes, a precocious Rose Zhang and

a dancing Carlos Alcaraz.

For a while in summer everyone thinks they’re going to rule the world forever.