July 18, 1988 was, at the time, unique in terms of Open Championship history. Rain washed out Saturday’s play and the Lytham links was deemed too wet to cope for all those who had made the cut to play it twice on the Sunday so a first ever Monday finish was decided upon.

It was an odd one on a personal basis too. A first Open in charge of coverage for The Dundee Courier and Evening Telegraph and a big decision to make in terms of whether to follow the play or sit in the press tent and watch it on television. That is always a tricky one when trying to overview proceedings on the final day and there was no guarantee that a significant tale for a Scottish newspaper would not emerge from elsewhere with Sandy Lyle just three shots off the lead in those pre-mobile ‘phone days with no way of getting anything back to HQ while out there, making it a bit risky in terms of time available to write everything up.

Youthful naivete, nervous energy and the presence of the most charismatic golfer of all time in the final group of three - another weather-related decision - combined to make a decision which was royally rewarded. Defending champion Nick Faldo had started in joint second place, but unlike the previous year at Muirfield his level par round would be nowhere good enough as it became a head-to-head battle between one of the great sporting heroes and the coming man.

It would be Seve’s last great swashbuckling round as, having been in the doldrums for a couple of years even then, he at times seemed almost to be hitting the ball on the run such was his excitement at being back where it had all begun for him close to a decade earlier in terms of major wins.

Nick Price held his nerve and, prior to last Sunday, it became the last great head-to-head battle for the Open Championship with two men in the final group seeking to match one another blow for blow and while Seve made up the two shot deficit on the front nine it was not until the 16th that he made the decisive move.

Like the fabled ‘Duel in the Sun’ 11 years earlier it was effectively match-play but with that extra element of risk in the strokeplay format which adds to the danger of these great players deciding to go for broke, elevating it above even the most thrilling of Ryder Cup encounters.

Which brings us neatly to the first time since 1988 that I have decided to go out and focus fully upon the final pairing in an Open Championship, it having become evident that for the first time since 1977 this would be a straight battle between men who had outplayed the field.

That Phil Mickelson was protecting a long legacy of American dominance at Troon, while Henrik Stenson was seeking a significant European breakthrough, made it all the more evocative of the Seve inspired transformation of the Ryder Cup as a contest. That, though, only makes it ever stranger that Henrik Stenson’s stunning victory was the first by a Continental golfer in close to 30 years.

Back then it was considered inevitable that Bernhard Langer, the first ever world no.1 when rankings were introduced in 1986, would win an Open, while it had been confidently predicted when Jose-Maria Olazabal added the Amateur Championship to his British Youths and British Boys wins that he would become the first player ever to win a full set of R&A titles.

In between we have seen remarkable near misses with Jesper Parnevik failing to pay enough attention to the scoreboard at Turnberry in 1994; Costantino Rocca holing his astonishing putt through the ‘Valley of Sin’ to get into the play-off before losing it to John Daly at St Andrews the following year; most poignantly, as attention turns this week to the British Seniors Open at Carnoustie, Jean van de Velde’s paddle in the Barry Burn that gave Paul Lawrie his chance in 1999; Thomas Bjorn’s three in a bunker at the 16th at St George’s when he had led the tournament by two as he teed off on that hole; and Sergio Garcia’s two runners-up finishes including a painful play-off loss to Padraig Harrington at Carnoustie nine years ago.

Stenson, too, had come close before when finishing second to Mickelson in 2013, but the way he gained revenge over the five time major champion, as much as the victory itself should infuse Continental golfers with huge confidence.

And Another Thing…

Early in that final round in 1988 an American golf writer turned to one of his veteran compatriots and asked: “Why are they all supporting Ballesteros rather than Faldo?”

“They think he’s one of theirs,” was the response, snorted derisively.

You would think someone from a nation made up of a union of states formed by people who were originally from this side of the Atlantic might have understood better.

Seve was one of ours. He was European.