Run in goes from 'frustration to sickness'

FINAL ROUND THE MAIN CHALLENGERS: THAT HORRID old English football expression involving a parrot sprung to mind as Lee Westwood composed himself after a three-putt bogey and walked off the 18th green, the gentleman in him seeking out a wheelchair recipient to possess the ball forever more that would remind the spectator, not the golfer, of what might have been. The ball that could have – should have? – won the Claret Jug.

Westwood was entitled to be as sick as the proverbial parrot. Gutted. “Yeah, it’s gone from frustration to sickness now,” admitted the Englishman who, for so long in the final round, had one hand on the Claret Jug.

In the end, it slipped and fell from this grasp, as a finish that featured three bogeys in his last four holes – en route to a 71 for 279, one shot outside a play-off – left him wondering the ifs and maybes of what might have been.

For much of a windswept day on the Scottish coast, Westwood – who’d enjoyed the team highs of inspiring Europe to Ryder Cup wins and the individual heights of topping the European Tour’s order of merit – sought to become the first Englishman to win the British Open since Nick Faldo in 1987 edged closer and closer to what seemed to be his destiny.

Unfortunately for him, it was not to be. The high point of his round had come on the 538 yards par five seventh hole which he eagled to take a two-stroke lead . . . but a poor run-up, bedevilled as it was by bad luck, which included a bizarre but true links kick on the 18th where his tee shot ran like a scalded cat into a fairway bunker, contrived to leave Westwood, well, sick.

Westwood had walked up the 18th – at which stage he was level with Stewart Cink (in the clubhouse) and one behind Tom Watson (who birdied the 17th) – believing his ball was safely on the fairway. “I figured he had hit the middle of the fairway, so I thought he was going to make four from there, but I shouldn’t have got ahead of myself, really.”

Still, on discovering it had somehow found one of the bunkers down the left, he produced a quite stunning eight-iron recovery to the front of the green. He still had it in his own hands. It was not to be, though. Believing he needed to hole the 80-footer for birdie to have a chance to win, Westwood putted aggressively and knocked it eight feet by. He missed the par putt back, which would have got him into the play-off.

“I played great all week, third place is not to be sniffed at in a major championship . . . but I’m disappointed, really. The biggest disappointment is, you know, three-putting the last,” said Westwood, who’d been in contention in his two previous tour events (losing a play-off to Martin Kaymer in the French Open and finishing eighth in the Scottish Open).

This one hurt, badly.

Any positives? “Well, you’ve just got to keep working. I’m putting in the hard work at the moment, and it’s obviously paying off because I’m getting closer . . . I’m very pleased with my week’s work. I played very solidly and had a chance to win The Open Championship. I had a great chance.”

Thing is, Westwood knows that such chances don’t come too often. Last year, he went toe-to-toe with Tiger Woods in the final round of the US Open at Torrey Pines and finished up missing out on the play-off by a shot.

Here, he again missed out on a play-off by one stroke. But he had it in his own destiny for so long.

That’s what will hurt the most.