“Some days you have it, and some days you don’t. Today I didn’t,” was Leishman’s summation of his last trip around Royal Portrush that included five bogeys and two birdies.

“You have days like that sometimes, and obviously you don’t want them to be on Sunday of a British Open. We’d like to have had a better score but didn’t.”

It was a failure to take advantage of the par-5s, which he played in 2-under for the week and ranked 77th in the field, that hurt the Victorian, who also identified his slow starts halting his charge up the leaderboard and potentially more major starts in 2026.

“I didn’t start very well any round. Like today, I had to get off to a good start and didn’t, and sort of everything seemed a little bit out of reach and just struggled after that,” he said.

“My ball striking was decent. I missed a few drives right. I’ve had a few driver issues this year just with them breaking. Not me breaking them, but them breaking.

“I had one break on the way over here, and I finally found one which is good. I’ll take that as a positive this week. I found a driver that I love, just couldn’t string enough good holes together, I guess.

“Par-5s needed a bit of improvement this week. Apart from that, I thought it was pretty decent.”

Disappointed but far from down and out, Leishman will be immediately back in action playing the LIV Golf League’s UK event next week, but not before some downtime and perhaps a little more of the local flavours.

“Yes,” he said with a laugh when asked if a Guinness was in his near future plans as part of letting his hair down.

“Actually going to Dublin tomorrow. My family fly out Tuesday out of Dublin … Probably do a little tour of Dublin with the kids and do another tour of Dublin later in the nighttime, us boys.”

At the top of the leaderboard, Scheffler was never truly challenged as he added a birdie at the first to reach 15-under with Rory McIlroy’s challenge peaking at 10-under through nine before a double bogey ended the home hopes.

Scheffler recovering from a double bogey of his own at the eighth with birdie at the next and eventually finishing on 17-under and four shots clear of runner-up Harris English, while last week’s Scottish Open winner Chris Gotterup made it an all-American podium with his 12-under total.

Scheffler, who only made three bogeys all week to go with his Sunday double, has now won four majors in 39 months and only needs the US Open title to join McIlroy, Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen as winners of the career grand slam.

“It’s a very special feeling, it takes a lot of work to get to this point in my career,” Scheffler said of his win.

The world No.1 not overly engaging in talk of joining Rory in one of golf’s smallest clubs in the immediate aftermath of his win with his own national Open at Shinnecock Hills some 11 months away.

“I don’t focus too much on that stuff (career grand slam).”

Australasian Scores
T52 Marc Leishman, (Ev)
MC Jason Day, (+2)
MC Daniel Hillier (NZ), (+2)
MC Ryan Fox (NZ), (+2)
MC Elvis Smylie, (+3)
MC Lucas Herbert, (+4)
MC Min Woo Lee, (+5)
MC Curtis Luck (+8)
MC Cameron Smith, (+8)
MC Ryan Peake, (+8)
MC Adam Scott, (+9)