ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – Viktor Hovland and Rory McIlroy are the final twosome Sunday in the 150th Open Championship.
About all they will share ahead of that 2:50 p.m. BST tee time, however, is their 16-under-par score.
“The tee times here are late, so I’ve been sort of taking a little mid-morning nap the last couple of days. Just try to do the same thing again,” McIlroy said of his pre-round routine.
“I usually get to the golf course three hours before and do a gym session and get some treatment, physio and lunch and everything else. I get my day in pretty well with just keeping myself busy. And certainly, phone away and just sort of get into my routine.”
Keeping himself physically active is not on Hovland’s agenda, nor is putting away his phone.
“Yeah, I’m pretty good at doing nothing,” the 24-year-old Norwegian said. “I find that time flies by when you’re just sitting on the couch on your phone, watching shows.”
When the two join up to battle for the claret jug, it will be their second consecutive trip together around the Old Course. Both men shot 6-under 66 on Saturday to move four clear of the field.
It’s a comfortable pairing for the two Ryder Cup teammates. Before things got serious down the stretch in Round 3, Hovland and McIlroy were chatty. McIlroy said they discussed everything from footwear to Hovland’s plans to return home to Norway after this week.
Full-field scores from the 150th Open Championship
They were also complementary of one another on the course, most evident at the par-4 10th, where McIlroy holed his bunker shot for eagle to take the lead and Hovland followed with a 14-footer for birdie to tie.
“I think it was the first bunker I put it in this week. And it was a nice result,” McIlroy said. “I said in one of the interviews it was skill to get it somewhere close, but it was luck that it went in the hole.”
Luck wasn’t the word Hovland used.
“That’s just a filthy bunker shot,” he said. “So, you just kind of have to go, ‘Hey, that was a sick shot.’”
