Bjorn vows to bounce back

DENMARK’S Thomas Bjorn has vowed to bounce back from his British Open heartache at Royal St George’s by winning a major championship.

Bjorn, who competes in the Irish Open at Portmarnock this week, blew a two-shot lead with three holes to play on Sunday as unknown American rookie Ben Curtis, 396th in the world, pulled off one of the biggest sporting shocks of all time.

The Dane took three shots to escape from a green-side bunker on the par-three 16th, twice watching in horror as the ball rolled back to his feet in the sand.

The 32-year-old did well to eventually hole from five feet for a double bogey but the damage had been done and he also bogeyed the 17th to drop out of a share of the lead.

The Ryder Cup star then narrowly failed to chip in on the last for a birdie to force a play-off, leaving Curtis to receive the Claret Jug and £700,000 first prize in his first-ever major championship.

"I will go on and bounce back from this, I have no doubt in my mind," said Bjorn, whose cheque for £345,000 for finishing joint second with Vijay Singh was little consolation.

"Some guys win major championships out of the blue and some guys take a long time. I have finished second in this tournament twice (to Tiger Woods at St Andrews in 2000) but I feel I can win any major with my game."

Bjorn also shrugged off the two-shot penalty he received during his first round following yet more trouble in one of the course's 104 bunkers. He was penalised for hitting the sand with his club after failing to escape from a bunker at the first attempt on the 17th on Thursday, leading to a quadruple bogey eight and an opening 73.

Without that he would have finished two under par for the tournament, one ahead of Curtis, but he refused to blame the incident for costing him the title, instead focusing on the changes he has been making to his game.

Bjorn only began working with new coach Bob Torrance a few weeks ago, and feels the pressure of leading a major championship going into the final day may have come too soon.

"Maybe I was not ready," conceded Bjorn, who was sportingly one of the first to congratulate surprise winner Curtis.

Mark Roe and Jesper Parnevik will be given prize money despite being disqualified, although the Royal & Ancient have insisted they will not change the rules of the game to prevent a similar controversy.

The £8,250 each player will receive will feel like small change to Sheffield's Roe, who was in contention for the £700,000 first prize won eventually by little-known American Ben Curtis.

But he may feel a little happier to know golf's governing body has promised a thorough review of procedures following Saturday's scorecard mix-up.

Roe was joint fourth at Royal St George's after a brilliant third round 67, but was disqualified along with Swedish playing partner Parnevik after the pair accidentally signed each other's cards.

The 40-year-old called for rule changes, claiming a "clerical error" should not have denied him the chance to compete in yesterday's final round, and steps will now be taken to ensure such incidents are not repeated.

Peter Dawson, secretary of the R&A, said: "The Mark Roe incident was obviously a great tragedy no one ever likes to see that and we'd be crazy not to review our procedures thoroughly, because incidents of this kind are very undesirable.

"We shall pause for reflection over the winter before next year's championship and have a thorough review of it."