Levet keeps his nerve in play-off victory

At first there were four, then there were two, and finally just the one - Thomas Levet, the winner of the British Masters. The tournament resolved itself into the first four-man sudden-death playoff since 1993, and Levet's opponents, Robert Karlsson, Matthias Gronberg and David Howell, could not live with him.

In that 1993 play-off Sam Torrance holed a gigantic putt at the first extra-hole to beat Ian Woosnam, Paul Broadhurst and Johann Rystrom in the Honda event in Hamburg. The win helped propel Torrance into the Ryder Cup team, and this tournament could do the same for Levet, who is perhaps the most surprising winner of one of the European tour's bigger events since . . . well, since last week, when Andrew Oldcorn won the Volvo PGA Championship.

The Frenchman called the win "unbelievable" and it was indeed incroyable. He was 63rd in the Volvo Order of Merit before the event began, and had missed the cut in five of the 14 tournaments he played since the start of the season. He had only one top-10 finish, and that a fourth place in Morocco against a less than stellar field. Yet here he disposed of three players in the play-off rated far more highly than he.

Karlsson and Gronberg are both in serious contention for the Ryder Cup team and Howell, by winning the Dubai Desert Classic, has had experience of victory at a much higher level than Levet. But Karlsson and Howell both bogeyed the first extra hole, the 18th, and then Levet hit the superior tee shot at the short 17th, which was played as the second extra hole.

Gronberg hit a six-iron at a hole playing 174 yards and finished about 20 feet short of the pin. Levet, whose biggest achievement on the European tour was to win the 1998 Cannes Open, also hit a six-iron, but to 10 feet, and after the Swede had left his birdie putt short, Levet rolled his in.

Levet will take away £208,330 sterling, only £2,000 short of what he collected in the whole of last season and more than he has won in any previous year. His win will probably not be greeted with great joy by Torrance, who is now, the Ryder Cup captain. Had either Karlsson or Gronberg won, they would have been close to confirming a place in the side, whereas no one had previously considered Levet as even a remote possibility to get in.

This was, however, a deserved victory. At the first extra hole the other three were all in trouble, Gronberg having driven into a bunker, Karlsson hitting his second into the crowd and Howell, off the best drive of all, finding sand with his second. Levet, though, drew his second round a tree perfectly, and ran the ball up to five feet.

With the others all having work to do, it was 10 minutes before the Frenchman was able to get down to his putt, knowing it was for outright victory. It was hit so tentatively it never had a chance. Levet did well to take the positive spin from it by saying: "At least I only had one man to beat now."

He did so at the next hole, afterwards revealing he had some unexpected assistance. At the end of the regulation 72 holes, he saw lying on the ground a coin with the words "Bringing you the luck of the Irish" engraved on it. He pocketed it and said later: "It was a little sign, I think." Indeed. Levet is now 13th in the Ryder Cup points list.

Darren Clarke was the best of the Irish, finishing with a 74 for a total of 286.