He wore zebra trousers dropped a shot at the fifth green and almost immediately disappeared from sight

He wore zebra trousers, dropped a shot at the fifth green and almost immediately disappeared from sight. As someone said, you cannot win an Open wearing zebra trousers.Duval’s outfit would have been unremarkable on your local pitch and putt course But much more striking was his demeanour He was deep in the mode of a winner. He nonchalantly munched a chocolate bar, in between wads of tobacco, and occasionally sipped from a water bottle. He was, as he obliterated, one by one, the romantic possibilities attaching themselves to such as Woosnam and Montgomerie and the brave but ultimately imprecise Darren Clarke, the natural born winner who had walked into the vacuum left by the great Woods.Of all the charges that he threw out of court ­ so witheringly he put himself in position to sue for punitive damages ­ the most impressive rebuttal was the one to the charge that for all his phenomenal scoring on the American tour, for all the cleanness of his ball-striking ­ he lacked the instinct to win one of the big ones He just couldn’t get it all together when it mattered. One golfer aficionado put it quite witheringly, saying, “I don’t know what it is but David doesn’t have it”. Duval made nonsense of it all when he answered the questions that had haunted him for so long, and which had provoked in him an angry response the night before he went out to make his point in the toughest of all golfing arenas.Duval said it wasn’t true that he was a nearly man, someone who disappeared into his own broodings when others became masters of their fate.It was something to say but it was rather more difficult to make it happen In the end Duval achieved what some said was impossible. He expressed himself in a way that surely cut through some of those demons which had accumulated in a troubled youth, when he brooded long and hard over the break-up of his parent’s marriage and the death of a brother who he had tried to save with a bone transplant.Duval’s pain, some said, carried over to his sport, and would always leave him unfulfilled.

He couldn’t make the big move between promise and achievement. Somewhere deep down he was hurt beyond repair.So much for the theories of sport’s psychology. David Duval cut through it all last night when he woke up and realised that the 130th Open was his to win He went out and laid his imprint all over it. Montgomerie, Woosnam, young Sergio Garcia, and Clarke all had their moments of fast rising hope They had huge, support too. But Duval had something that carried him beyond all opposition. He had the certainty that it was the time to make the big move of his career ­ and his life.

He did with the authority of a man who suddenly had lost all fear and doubt.For the likes of Montgomerie and Clarke the dream of winning the Open will continue to haunt them. Their sentence was prolonged by David Duval, the man who announced that this day there could only be one winner of a great golf tournament alleged to be wide open It wasn’t. It belonged to the man coming out of the shadows.FINAL ROUND SCORES (GB or Irl unless stated)274 (£600,000)D Duval (US) 69 73 65 67 277 (£360,000)N Fasth (Swe) 69 69 72 67 278 (£141,666 each)E Els (SA) 71 71 67 69D Clarke 70 69 69 70M A Jimenez (Sp) 69 72 67 70B Mayfair (US) 69 72 67 70I Woosnam 72 68 67 71B Langer 71 69 67 71279 (£63,750 each)M Ilonen (Fin) 68 75 70 66K Sutherland (US) 75 69 68 67S Garcia (Sp) 70 72 67 70J Parnevik (Swe) 69 68 71 71 280 (£40,062 each)V Singh (Fiji) 70 70 71 69L Roberts (US) 70 70 70 70D Smyth 74 65 70 71B Andrade (US) 69 70 70 71R Goosen (SA) 74 68 67 71C Montgomerie 65 70 73 72R Jacquelin (Fr) 71 68 69 72A Cejka (Ger) 69 69 69 73281D Love III (US) 73 67 74 67N Price (Zim) 73 67 68 73282M Campbell (NZ) 71 72 71 68G Owen 69 68 72 73283B Estes (US) 74 70 73 66T Woods (US) 71 68 73 71E Romero (Arg) 70 68 72 73J Ogilvie (US) 69 68 71 75284B Lane 70 72 72 70285S Cink (US) 71 72 72 70 P Mickelson (US) 70 72 72 71P Price 74 69 71 71J Rose 69 72 74 70S Verplank (US) 71 72 70 72*D Dixon 70 71 70 74N Vanhootegem (Bel) 72 68 70 75286P Harrington 75 66 74 71F Lickliter (US) 71 71 73 71T Taniguchi (Japan) 72 69 72 73A Coltart 75 68 70 73D Hart (US) 74 69 69 74287J P Hayes (US) 69 71 74 73R Green (Aus) 71 70 72 74S Stricker (US) 71 69 72 75M O’Meara (US) 70 69 72 76P Lawrie 72 70 69 76288P Lonard (Aus) 72 70 74 72R Allenby (Aus) 73 71 71 73C DiMarco (US) 68 74 72 74L Westwood 73 70 71 74M Gogel (US) 73 70 71 74A Scott (Aus) 73 71 70 74B Faxon (US) 68 71 74 75289J M Olazabal (Sp) 69 74 73 73R Sabbatini (SA) 70 69 76 74C Franco (Par) 71 71 73 74M Calcavecchia (US) 72 70 72 75P Curry 72 71 71 75P McGinley 69 72 72 76D Waldorf (US) 70 73 69 77290S Appleby (Aus) 69 75 72 74291G Brand Jnr 70 72 75 74B Chamblee (US) 72 69 74 76P Fulke (Swe) 69 67 72 83295N Cheetham 72 72 73 78296T Levet (Fr) 72 72 77 75A Balicki (Fr) 69 75 75 77298D Smail (NZ) 71 72 76 79301S Henderson 75 69 81 76S Lyle 72 71 77 81* denotes amateur. David Duval finally removed his wrap-around shades and baseball cap, and broke into a broad smile that he rarely allows to pass his lips on a golf course.

As he lifted the silver claret jug, after a three-stroke victory in the 130th Open championship, Duval revealed more of himself than ever before. David Duval finally removed his wrap-around shades and baseball cap, and broke into a broad smile that he rarely allows to pass his lips on a golf course. As he lifted the silver claret jug, after a three-stroke victory in the 130th Open championship, Duval revealed more of himself than ever before.
Hardly a knight of old, the 29-year-old American nevertheless conquered his demons and those presented by the Royal Lytham course to emerge from a highly congested leaderboard with a commanding final round of 67 He once won a tournament with a closing round of 59. This was hardly that spectacular, but his victory owed much to perseverance and courage. Ten under par standing on the 14th tee, Duval parred each of the last five holes which constitute Lytham’s fearsome finish to comfortable surpass the seven-under clubhouse lead of Sweden’s Niclas Fasth.”It’s a big relief,” Duval said. “It is so pressure-packed in a major and more so on a course like this where every mistake is magnified I feel so good about this. It’s kind of surreal.” No one else could live with Duval’s pace and what threatened to be a dramatic conclusion in mid-round dissipated slightly as his main challengers fell back.

For Ian Woosnam, one of the joint leaders with Duval overnight, it was an afternoon of tragi-comedy. Having hit a glorious six-iron six inches short of the cup at the first hole, his caddie, a trembling Myles Byrne, announced on the second tee that there were 15 clubs in the Welshman’s bag: one more than that permitted by the rules. Woosnam was penalised two strokes, his birdie two at the first converted to a bogey four. He dropped two more strokes in the next three holes, but recovered to score a 71 and finish four behind the champion, in a six-way tie for third place. “I couldn’t get it out of my mind all the way round,” Woosnam said.