Here’s what should have happened at the 72^nd tee of the Open Championship. Steve Williams menacingly yanks that 3-wood out of Adam Scott’s grasp, gives it the Cheech Marin “Tin Cup” snap, dares him to hit anything but iron and stomps with pit-bull passion toward another place in golf history.

You know that’s what New Zealand’s square-jawed looper wanted to do. Instead, Scott will take his place in majors lore for the wrong reason.

Blowing a four-shot lead by bogeying the final four holes isn’t the greatest meltdown in majors history, but it’s up there. Arnold Palmer can relate. He mangled a seven-shot lead with nine holes left in the 1966 U.S. Open and lost a playoff to Billy Casper. Think that didn’t have a lasting impact? Palmer never again was in majors contention.

Greg Norman’s biorhythms shorted from a power surge in the 1996 Masters. Ahead by six entering the final round, he watched Nick Faldo beat him by five shots in an 11-stroke free fall. That was painful.

As was the No. 1 flop of all-time, Jean Van de Velde’s titanic sinking on the 72^nd hole of the 1999 Open Championship. Who among us who endured his fateful hole didn’t want to reach through the TV screen and shake him like a bottle of Pepto? He led by three on the tee, buckled for 45 minutes and lost a playoff.

But that is what’s so beautiful and agonizing about this stick-and-ball game. Undone by nerves and pressure, what is so easy early in a round can become impossible later. That’s when muscle memory becomes as flexible as titanium.

Ernie Els winning his fourth major after Scott’s collapse is a feel-good story. But Els, seemingly out of it, finished an hour earlier with only pride on the line. Playing those last four holes with a major at stake is a different ballgame.

Thriving under white-knuckle conditions is key in any sport. It’s also hard to consistently pull off. Sometimes, that calls for a hint of strong-armed encouragement.