Rory McIlroy stayed in Rusack's Hotel last week and every time he walked out of the reception and onto the Links road bordering the Old Course, he visualised his name on top of that famous blue and yellow leaderboard.
It was up there for real for more than 24 hours from Saturday afternoon until he got to the 14th fairway today and Cameron Smith overtook him.
A keen fisherman, Smith reeled in the biggest catch of his career and then passed him by with four holes to go at St Andrews.
Fifty years on from fellow Aussie Ken Nagle winning here, Smith's thrilling closing 64 was more than enough to punish the Ulsterman's conservative approach and cold putter.
"That's pretty cool, I didn't know that," said Smith of the Nagle connection.
"To win an Open championship in itself is probably going to be a golfer's highlight in their career. To do it around St Andrews is just unbelievable."
Sunday at the Open was supposed to be a shoot-out between Ryder Cup team-mates McIlroy and Viktor Hovland, who carded 66s on Saturday to move four clear of the chasing pack.
McIlroy had been trending nicely in the majors this year, his work with sports psychologist Bob Rotella bearing fruit and he spoke on Saturday night of sticking to his process en route to becoming the first European to win at St Andrews since 1990.
Instead, it was Smith who seized the day as Hovland's challenge never materialised and McIlroy's game plan of not cutting loose cost him dearly.
The man with the mullet went out in the penultimate group with Cameron Young and claimed his first major title with memorable swagger, firing off five birdies after the turn.
McIlroy, who started quietly but efficiently, was three shots ahead of Smith when the Aussie started an unstoppable charge. The championship favourite had no answer to it.
For McIlroy, the week had been about the quest for the Holy Grail.
In the end, he was forced to settle for third behind Smith and the American big-hitter Young, whose eagle at the last was what McIlroy himself then needed to force a play-off after Smith did brilliantly to salvage a par on the Road Hole.
Instead, McIlroy's drive landed well short of the green and his attempted chip-in never threatened the hole.
Afterwards, as McIlroy was asked in the mixed zone had his mind wandered at any stage to him lifting the Claret Jug again, Smith was doing just that for real on the 18th green to deafening applause.
"Of course," replied McIlroy. "I'm only human, I'm not a robot. Of course you think about it, and you envision it, and you want to envision it.
"My hotel room is directly opposite the big yellow board on 18 there, right of the 1st.
"And every time I go out, I'm trying to envision 'McIlroy' as the top name on that leaderboard.
"At the start of the day, it was at the top, but at the start of tomorrow, it won't be.
"Of course you've got to let yourself dream. You've got to let yourself think about it and what it would be like.
"But once I was on the golf course, it was just task at hand and trying to play the best golf I possibly could.
"There's a worthy winner right on the 18th green right now."
Jack Nicklaus once said that if you're going to be a player that people will remember, you have to win the Open here.
Tiger Woods was at Adare Manor less than a fortnight ago when he was asked for his opinion on it.
"As Jack says, your career is not complete unless you've won an Open Championship at the home of golf, and I feel like he's correct in that regard," said Woods.
Speaking on Tuesday, McIlroy wouldn't go quite that far. “I don’t know if a golfer’s career isn’t complete if you don’t, but I think it’s the Holy Grail of our sport,” he remarked.
"But it’s certainly up there with one of the greatest things you can do in our game.”
McIlroy dreamt in the run-up of becoming a member of that exclusive club that includes Sam Snead, Bobby Locke, Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo - and the aforementioned Nicklaus and Woods, who won it twice on the sport's most hallowed ground.
To do it on the 150th staging of this championship would have felt like the fulfilment of destiny for the golfer who was clearly the people's champion this week.
Just as Padraig Harrington was roared to victory over Greg Norman at Birkdale in 2008 to win the Claret Jug back to back, so McIlroy was the man who the galleries urged on over the weekend here - sensing what it meant for the sport for a man of his stature to get back on the major winning trail.
Instead, McIlroy's long wait continues - stretching all the way back to 2014, when he lifted the Claret Jug at Hoylake and then a couple of weeks later won the US PGA championship.
The golfing world lay at his feet then, and while he enjoyed some massive highs in the years that followed, most notably when he won the FedEx Cup and was the PGA Player of the Year in 2019, but he has also suffered intense lows.
Tears flowed for McIlroy after the Ryder Cup last year and certainly this is another body blow.
The hurt will cut deep. While he spoke eloquently after this latest disappointment, McIlroy will forever know that he had one hand on the Claret Jug on the most special stage of all.
"I'll be OK," he insisted. "It's not...at the end of the day, it's not life or death.
"I'll have other chances to win the Open Championship and other chances to win majors.
"It's one that I feel like I let slip away, but there will be other opportunities."
After the celebrations died down, Smith had a word for his vanquished foe.
"He's obviously a great player," he said.
"He's one of those guys that you can't help but stop when he's hitting balls on the range, and he just keeps knocking on doors every week, it seems like. He's probably the most consistent player out here.
"He's going to get a major, I'm sure, very soon. He's just really solid.
"For me, I've played with Rory a few times, and there's really nothing that you can fault."
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