So this is what we all dreaded:

“Yesterday, in a shock result, the 136th Open Championship at Carnoustie was won by Scott Bunface III, a 32-year-old journeyman player from Kansas City, Missouri, known only for his Christian beliefs, his distinctive, top-to-toe, dove-grey apparel and his quiet teetotalism. While more colourful and popular players such as Sergio GarcÍa, Ernie Els and Jim Furyk simply fell by the wayside on an eventful last day’s play, Bunface efficiently broke the Carnoustie course record by two shots to come from nowhere and claim the famous Claret Jug. ‘I’d like to thank my Lord Jesus for advising me to use a driver off the fairway on the 6th,’ he said afterwards, having politely removed his cap to reveal a head shaped like a peanut. ‘I’d also like to thank Him for telling me that only commies and pansy-boys use belly putters.’ Among his fellow American players, no one could say a bad word about Bunface, but only because they weren’t quite sure who he was.”

From this small flight of fancy, you will deduce with what robustly positive feelings we saw Steve Stricker, the American (from Madison, Wisconsin), forge up the leaderboard on Saturday to six under par, to challenge Sergio GarcÍa’s leading score of nine under for this year’s Open Championship.

Yesterday morning, we winced collectively at the possibility that the event might be won, yet again, by a neat, upright Midwesterner of whom many golf fans had basically never heard. Take nothing away from Stricker’s great third round, of course. Take nothing away from Ben Curtis, from Ohio (winner, 2003, Royal St George’s) or Todd Hamilton, from Illinois (winner, 2004, Royal Troon), either. Whoever wins on the day is self-evidently the best player of the championship and should be respected accordingly.

But it remains true that the event is somehow undermined by every additional obscure, generic-looking, “run that name past me again, squire” champion – all the more so (one regrets to say) if he hails from a flat middle bit of the United States.

The simple explanation for golf’s aversion to surprise winners is that it is all about emotional investment. When one feels one has spent ten years cheering (mainly in vain) for GarcÍa, Padraig Harrington and Els, one starts to believe that GarcÍa, Harrington and Els deserve the win more than the chap from Columbus, Ohio.

Well, they say answered prayers cause more tears than those that remain unanswered, and now I know it to be true. Yesterday, I felt wearily familiar feelings begin to build quite early: sick as a parrot for GarcÍa as he started to lose his lead, tentatively excited for Harrington as he shot up the leaderboard and sort of wincingly desperate on behalf of Els.

By way of relief, I allowed myself – for about half an hour – to pull for that rank outsider, Andrés Romero, of Argentina, because he appeared to be playing the most improbably brilliant round of golf I had seen since Tiger Woods took Augusta in 1997. But, alas, this refuge in fantasy simply could not last.

It was a classic last day of an Open Championship, a fantastic finish of players’ scores scrambling over each other like frogs in a jar.

Passing the Claret Jug to boring old Scott Bunface III would have been untrammelled joy compared with this; instead, one’s familiar emotions for Harrington, Els and GarcÍa were jerked on the same string for what seemed an eternity. When Harrington eagled the 14th, to join Romero in the lead at nine under par – just as Romero double-bogeyed the 17th, to drop to seven under – I thought I might expire from the anxiety.

So many people deserved to win this, it seemed. It would be a wonderful thing if Harrington won this. It would be a wonderful thing if GarcÍa proved his mettle and clawed his way back (has he ever done that before?). And it would be beyond wonderful if Romero found himself in a play-off with the two of them.

I cannot tell you much about the last hour and a half of the event. I lost consciousness when Harrington drove his tee-shot on the 18th into the Barry Burn. When I recovered (temporarily), the whole event had changed from people trying to win it; now it seemed they were trying to chuck it away.

GarcÍa – with a shot in hand – had played his second shot on the 18th into a bunker. I am always telling people that the excitement of golf is how it can come down to the last player at the last hole on the last day, but I had forgotten that it is unbearable when it does.

Even with so much excitement, you will be pleased to hear that I did not break faith with Stewart Cink, even if the BBC neglected him.

A round of 70 meant that Cink, who had played steadily throughout the championship, ended up at four under par and joint sixth. I should never have mentioned my Stewart Cink plumbing fantasy to the chaps, however. Over the past few days I have ventured to point out that Cink was going rather well – only to set off a lot of knowing nods, not to mention jokes about chaps coming to fix the central heating.

I always protested that it was all about his rather beautiful swing and attractively calm temperament, but once you have got into the realm of innuendo, it seems there can be no going back.