2025 British Open day 3: Scottie Scheffler in control, Rory McIlroy Marc Leishman on the charge
Rory McIlroy shot the lights out on day three of the Open, triggering roar after roar from a partisan crowd. Despite that, he still went to the clubhouse facing a stark reality. Scottie Scheffler looks unbeatable.
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Marc Leishman wants to punch a return ticket to The Open after the lone Australian left in the 153rd championship admitted he’s desperate for a top-10 finish in Northern Ireland.
Leishman signed for a steady three-under 68 during the third round on Sunday morning (AEST), giving him an outside chance of climbing to somewhere near the top of the leaderboard in the final round at Royal Portrush.
The top 10 finishers will be guaranteed a spot in next year’s event at Royal Birkdale, and Leishman’s access to the majors has been restricted due to LIV Golf yet to be given official world rankings status. He’s tied-22nd heading into the final round.
In the most favourable conditions all week, Leishman (-4) was only left to rue missed opportunities on the links course’s three par-fives, playing them in one-over during his third round.
He remains 10 shots behind world No.1 Scottie Scheffler, who edged closer to the third leg of the career grand slam with a nerveless 67.
“Obviously there’s the carrot dangling to try to get into the top four, but also to try to get in The Open next year,” Leishman said. “You want to do something silly and try to go crazy low, but you also want to make sure you try to get back in next year and give yourself a chance to get into the other majors. I’m probably more so looking at that.”
Leishman is the sole surviving Australian in The Open, with the other eight all missing the cut on the brutal coastal course.
He ended three years in the majors wilderness when he qualified for the US Open last month, and has long had his eye on The Open, having earned his spot via a top-three finish at the Australian Open last year.
Leishman made a bad start to his third round with a three-putt bogey, but finished with five birdies and just two bogeys on his round.
“If I played the par-fives better, I could have had a really low one,” Leishman said. “None of them were playing difficult either. That was disappointing.
“It’s been a while (since I’ve been playing majors), but something you can slide back into pretty easily. It’s what we want to do, play majors, win majors. I’ve not been in them for a while, but happy to be back.”
On moving day, Scheffler (-14) did Scheffler things. After a middling start to his round with six straight pars, he went eagle-birdie and finished with four-under to open up a four-shot lead from China’s Haotong Li (-10).
Rory McIlroy (-8) jolted Royal Portrush into a cacophony of roars with three birdies in his first four holes, but has a mountain to climb to run down Scheffler despite his 66.
“I think any time you can keep a clean card around a major championship, you’re going to be having a pretty good day,” Scheffler said.
McIlroy faces Scheffler reality
Rory McIlroy got to his ball on the 18th green, and like a kid finally tempted one too many times to put a hand in the lolly jar, dared look at a leaderboard. There’s one either side of the giant grandstand that horseshoes around the last hole. It was telling the same old story at the top.
S Scheffler -13.
McIlroy took a deep breath, almost a recognition no matter how good he plays, no matter how many roars he triggers, no matter how desperately he wants to win golf’s most historic tournament in his own backyard, he won’t. He can’t, can he? Scottie Scheffler looks unbeatable.
“He’s playing like Scottie,” McIlroy shrugs. “I don’t think it’s a surprise. Everyone’s seen the way he’s played over the last two or three years. He’s just so solid. He doesn’t make mistakes.
“Whenever you’re trying to chase down a guy like that, it’s hard to do. He’s incredibly impressive.”
For a few hours on Sunday morning (AEST), tens of thousands Northern Irish tried to bend a golf tournament to their own will.
They might even be tempted to ask the big man upstairs at Sunday morning worship, but is there even a point? Scheffler has already got God on his side.
It’s gone past a question of if Scheffler wins the 153rd Open Championship, it’s merely a matter of when. When he does, he might enjoy it for two minutes. In these parts, an achingly cold and blue collar corner of the world where McIlroy is everyone’s other son, they’ll still be talking about it in two centuries if there is a McIlroy Miracle.
For a while during his third round, they were believing.
The grand slam winner birdied three of his first four holes, and you didn’t need whispers to realise what was going on. The roars were so loud, so definitive, there would be packed grandstands on holes half-a-mile away which would bellow and cheer just because they heard people bellow and cheer elsewhere. It could only mean a McIlroy birdie, or eagle like his putt from another postcode on the 12th.
“It’s one of the largest roars I’ve ever heard on a golf course,” McIlroy says. “So, that was a really cool moment.”
Said Marc Leishman: “You can hear (the roars) everywhere.”
McIlroy even produced a magic trick he was impressed with, somehow managing to uncover an old ball buried in a native area on the 11th hole when he swung lustily at his own ball. He picked it up, looked at it in amazement, and just tossed it away.
“It’s never happened to me before,” McIlroy said. “It could never happen on any other course but a links course as well.”
Scheffler (-14) is Winx-like odds to saunter to his fourth major win, completing the third leg of a career grand slam. The world No.1 barely broke a sweat in his third round, as automatic as Scheffler gets, posting a bogey-free four-under 67. He leads China’s Haotong Li by four shots, with McIlroy (-8) two further back in tied-fourth.
McIlroy had to wait 11 years to finally end his excruciating wait for the grand slam winning the Masters in April. He sunk to his knees on the 18th green, wept uncontrollably, and ever if you had any doubt of the burden he’d carried by never being able to tame Augusta, there was your answer.
It’s easy to interpret when Scheffler peeled back the curtain on how he truly feels about his craft earlier this week, there was a subliminal message for McIlroy. McIlroy’s comedown from the Masters has been heavy. He’s been snarky with the media, played average golf by his extreme standards, looked anything but a man basking in the golden and green jacket glow. Now that he’d climbed Everest, what was next?
But there’s also a lesson Scheffler can learn from McIlroy: nothing is given, especially in a sport as infuriating as this.
Golf history has a strange way of repeating itself.
McIlroy won his first four majors in the space of three years (2011-2014). When Scheffler lifts the claret jug some time on Monday morning, he will have won his first four majors in the space of three years (2022-2025).
Who honestly thinks he will be waiting 11 years to win a US Open? Anyone?
In the minutes after Scheffler emotionlessly walked to sign his scorecard, deadbatted a few questions from the media, The Open’s host broadcaster in the UK was discussing how “annoying” it can be that he shows no emotions on course.
“When I watch Scottie play a lot, he just looks blacked out to me,” defending champion Xander Schauffele says. “Just doing his thing. He’s just in his own world and nothing’s going to bother him. He gets to that place often, which is a good thing for him.”
But it’s not good for everyone else.
“Winning major championships is not an easy task, and I’ve put myself in a good position,” Scheffler says, perhaps the understatement of the year. “Going into tomorrow I’m going to step up there on the first tee and I’m going to be trying to get the ball in the fairway, and when I get to the second shot, I’m going to be trying to get that ball on the green.
“There’s not really too much else going on.”
‘F*** this place’: Open star punished on controversial day
Fan favourite Shane Lowry was sensationally penalised two strokes after officials ruled his ball moved after a practice swing on a wild day for the former Open champion, who also cursed at Royal Portrush, the scene of his only major win.
A deflated Lowry spent about 20 minutes poring over vision of him addressing his ball from thick rough on the 12th hole, with one camera appearing to show it slightly moving after he took a practice swing on Saturday morning (AEST).
He was told he would be assessed a two-shot penalty, which plunged him back to even-par for the tournament – 10 strokes behind world No.1 Scottie Scheffler.
“I was in there with the rules official and wasn’t arguing my case, but I’m disappointed that they don’t have more camera angles on it,” Lowry told media after the second round.
“They’re trying to tell me if it doesn’t move from the naked eye, if you don’t see it moving, it didn’t move. I told them I definitely was looking down towards the ball as I was taking that practice swing, and I didn’t see it move.
“I’m still not sure, to be honest, whether it was (moving) or not. But I had to take the penalty because I can’t have my name talked about or tossed around like that.
“The last thing I want to do is sit there and argue and not take the penalty and then get slaughtered all over social media tonight for being a cheat.”
Lowry was first alerted to the potential infraction by a rules official on the 15th hole and was asked to examine the incident post round with playing partners Scheffler and Collin Morikawa (+7).
The ruling has given Lowry a mountain to climb after an otherwise solid day in which he signed for two birdies and a bogey, adding to the double bogey he accepted on the 12th.
Asked about the Lowry incident, Scheffler said: “Ultimately in golf it’s up to the player, and I felt like Shane was put in a pretty tough situation there when they were zooming in on his golf ball. In the rough, it’s hard to tell.
“From what I looked at very briefly on the video, it looked like it was very difficult to see if the ball moved.”
Said Lowry: “If the ball moved, I would have called it on myself. My head was definitely looking down at the ball and I didn’t see it moving. But I’m out there signing for a 72 now.”
It wasn’t the only contentious moment of Lowry’s round, with a hot mic picking him up saying “f--- this place” after a wayward drive.
Lowry was feted for his remarkable win in The Open six years ago when the tournament returned to Northern Ireland, and he even has a large mural painted of him on the side of a house in Portrush.
Originally published as 2025 British Open day 3: Scottie Scheffler in control, Rory McIlroy Marc Leishman on the charge
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