"Only, and I mean only, at St. Andrews."

Steve Elling asks why the R&A didn't use this year's Open to announce a return to St. Andrews in 2015 despite the unanimous desire to return ASAP.

Inside, with a window open on the ground floor of his rented home for the week, was Davis Love and his wife, watching the telly. One playful writer stuck his head in the window, and in a kid's falsetto voice, said, "Mr. Love, Mr. Love, can I please have your autograph?"

Love looked across the room and recognized the source, then hilariously shot back, "After the round, boys, after the round."

Only, and I mean only, at St. Andrews.

For largely undisclosed reasons, Royal & Ancient officials haven't yet declared where they will play the 2015 British Open, and the general public assumption is that the host organization will continue its five-year migration to the Old Course, the game's Lourdes, Mecca and Sistine Chapel rolled into one package. It's even located just outside the backdoor of the R&A headquarters.

But renewing the timeline is apparently a big assumption, even though the Open has been staged at St. Andrews in 2000, 2005, 2010 and everybody seems to love the rhyme, reason and rhythm of the five-year plan.

"With regard to the 2015 question, I seem to be getting asked this a huge amount the last couple of days," R&A chief Peter Dawson said this week when pressed for an answer. "I don't know why people are asking it. Is there a hare running on this one?"

 You do have to wonder, unless the R&A saw what happened at Pebble Beach this year when a premature announcement of a 2019 return overshadowed the 2017 news about Erin Hills. Then again, The Old Course getting another Open is not exactly going to stun anyone.

It was also asked of Dawson why the Seniors have never played the Old Course. But imagine how much fun it'd be to have two weeks there, with the Open and Seniors or Women. Of course, everyone in the media and executive ranks would go broke staying there for two weeks, but it looks nice on paper.