Els struggles to find positives

It was no consolation to Ernie Els – or to the fan who stood to win £500,000 (€752,488) - that the South African is now the only player in Open history to complete two championships without a round higher than 69.

On neither occasion did he win and at Els' level, winning is what it is all about.

Els became the first to accomplish the feat at Sandwich in 1993, but in the lowest scoring Open ever he finished only sixth.

Winner Greg Norman soon followed him, before Nick Price and runner-up Jesper Parnevik did the same at Turnberry the following year. And in winning at St Andrews in 2000, Tiger Woods joined this elite sub-70 club.

But Els would have been happy to shoot four rounds in the eighties or nineties if he had reclaimed the claret jug at the end of it.

He still collected £430,000 (€647,226) for his week’s work, is closer than ever to ending Tiger Woods’ reign of almost five years as world number one and has leap-frogged over US Open champion Retief Goosen back to the top of the European Order of Merit.

The fan, of course, lost the £62,500 (€94,074) he put on Els at 8/1 last Wednesday.

Els said: “Right now I’m thinking of the putt on the 72nd (a 10-footer to win), but if you start thinking about it too much you’re going to be in trouble.

“Just to get back in the race was a hell of an effort and I had my chance, but from where I was you had such a difficult putt.

“Todd hung in there and he played really awesome. It was a nice little horse race and I just came up a little short.”

As he did against Phil Mickelson in the Masters in April.