It was the most manic of manic Mondays. If you’d ducked out of work yesterday to witness the captivating conclusion to the 144th Open Championship, you may need to take another day off to recover. There will probably be a queue outside the darkened rooms, mind you. Louis Oosthuizen, Marc Leishman, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day, Adam Scott, Sergio Garcia and Paul Dunne might be in that line.

This was the Open that never wanted to end. The delays, the disruptions, the extra day of play? It was inevitable that this mind-mangling, prolonged quest for the Claret Jug would be decided in a four-hole play-off. For the £10 entry fee, the punters certainly got their money’s worth. Even Ivor Robson, who was retiring from his role as starter and was probably tucking into a sandwich and enjoying a well deserved toilet break, got an extra shift out of it as he was ushered back on to the tee at 7pm to get things going again.

It was a superb, enthralling, dramatic spectacle in this great theatre of golf and by 8pm it was Zach Johnson, the man most folk had forgotten about in all the frenzy, who had his hands wrapped round this cherished clump of silverware as he finally staved off Oosthuizen and Leishman in extra holes after they all finished locked on 15-under 273s. The 39-year-old birdied the first two play-off holes to steal a march on his rivals. As Leishman wilted, Johnson almost came a cropper on the 17th and had to settle for a bogey after pitching over the back of the green and on to the bank that leads to the road. Oosthuizen, the champion here in 2010, had a chance to tie him but his putting deserted him and he missed a short one for par. His birdie effort on the 18th to force a sudden-death shoot-out with Johnson burned the cup and only compounded the anguish. The championship was finally over. It was a day that had everything ... and a fair bit more.

Eight years after winning a green jacket at the Masters, Johnson now has a Claret Jug. “The radar is going bonkers now,” he said with a smile, as he emphasised the fact that he was the man who had tip-toed in quietly amid the din of other great expectations.

It was dour and wet in the Auld Grey Toun but the sense of anticipation at what was to come as the leading groups were sent into battle was electric. So too was the atmosphere. Could Spieth win his third major in a row and keep the grand slam dream alive? Could Dunne, playing in the final group, become the first amateur to win the Open since Bobby Jones in 1930? It was a day of intriguing questions and the answers would unravel during a quite compelling afternoon and evening of all-consuming action. There were times that the leaderboard was tighter than the lycra on those Tour de France cyclists and nobody could break away from the pack.

While Dunne nervously stumbled up the first and then battered his drive at the second on to the 18th green of the adjacent New Course, his fellow Dubliner, Padraig Harrington, made an early thrust with a trio of birdies on his first four holes to briefly lead. A tee-shot on the sixth that plunged into a bush and led to a crippling double-bogey began his demise, though. Plenty of others would take up the running and then ran out of steam.

Johnson barged his way to the front with four birdies on his first seven holes while Scott surged to the turn in 31 to state his intentions only for him to endure another calamitous finish in an Open as he leaked five shots on a disastrous run-in. The last time an Open spilled in to Monday, at Lytham in 1988, it was Seve Ballesteros who triumphed and the major-less matador Garcia drew on that good omen to mount a charge. That typically boisterous, passionate challenge was thwarted with a trip into the fairway bunker on the 12th and a three-putt on the 14th.

Spieth, meanwhile, was right in amongst it too but a four-putt double-bogey on the eighth derailed the express. Brilliant birdies at 10, 11 and 12 underlined his astonishing resilience and competitive fire, though, The Spieth slam wasn’t just going to peter out.

There were chops and changes, ebbs and flows and up and downs as your eyes were almost dragged from their sockets as they tried furiously to absorb the wildly fluctuating fortunes. Day was ambling along with menacing efficiency but would have another major near miss while Leishman’s eighth birdie of the day on the 15th thrust him into the lead at 16-under. Up ahead, a raking 30-footer on the last in a 66 gave Johnson, who had duffed an approach to the 17th and took a bogey, the clubhouse lead and the target was set.

There were roars galore. Spieth’s 35-footer for birdie on 16 sparked a huge one. His bogey on 17 from six-feet was greeted by groans that were almost as audible. The pitch that dribbled back into the Valley of Sin on 18 finally put an end to his remarkable tilt at a triple whammy of majors. Leishman’s leaked shot on 16, his first since the 17th hole of round two, would be costly as he finished with a 66 to join Johnson on the 15-under mark.

Oosthuizen was still clinging on in there, though, and a crucial par save on 15 was followed by another nerveless par-putt on the 17th. There was still a birdie required on the last to force his way into the play-off and the South African obliged under the most intolerable tension as he dunted an approach to four-feet to make a three for a 69 and prolong proceedings

This flabbergasting Open of twists and turns would have another chapter. After all the talk of historic stories, it was Johnson who was the story. Now, what day is it again?