Scottish win puts Singh into Open

Jeev Milkha Singh is back in The Open three years after pulling out injured two days before the start at Turnberry, unsure he would ever return.

The 40-year-old Indian will make his second appearance this week as Scottish Open champion after a dramatic final day at Castle Stuart near Inverness.

Singh, whose famous father Milkha just missed out on an Olympic medal in a photo finish to the 400 metres in Rome in 1960, looked to have come up just short himself despite a superb closing 67.

Home hope Marc Warren led by three entering the closing stretch, but in a traumatic meltdown double-bogeyed the 15th and bogeyed the next two to lose by one.

That left Singh and Italian Francesco Molinari to fight out a sudden death play-off and the former won it with a 12-foot birdie putt on the first extra hole.

While Molinari, runner-up for the second week running, was already exempt for Royal Lytham Singh grabbed the one place up for grabs – and so Warren missed out on that as well.

“I was just enjoying a cup of tea and some chocolate cake and watching it on television – and suddenly got excited,” said Singh, who began the day five shots off the lead in joint 16th place.

“I think God has been kind. The field came back and I’m very fortunate. Going into the Open Championship I think it’s a treat for me.”

Especially given his long struggle with back trouble.

“It’s been more frustrating than anything else – you feel like your game is coming back and another injury creeps up.

“I just stuck in there and worked on the physical side. Everything has paid off.”

To win on a links course was a special moment for the first Indian golfer to qualify for the European Tour.

His first experience of seaside golf came as a 16-year-old in 1988.

It was for the qualifying rounds of the British amateur championship at Royal Porthcawl and also Pyle and Kenfig. He shot rounds of 87 and 84.

“I thought ’My God, this is tough’. I wasn’t used to wearing raingear.”

Molinari had a similar experience just over a decade ago. He had to birdie the last hole to break 90 at St Andrews, but has since become a Ryder and World Cup winner.

The 29-year-old, a member of Colin Montgomerie’s winning side at Celtic Manor two years ago, leaps from 10th to fourth in the points race with only six weeks to go.

“Obviously disappointing not to finish it off,” said Molinari, who opened with a course record 62 and led after the second and third rounds as well.

“I’ll just think back and try to draw the positives. I just need to get the energies back and try to do the same again.”

He had been trying to emulate his brother Edoardo, winner of the title in 2010, but now recovering from wrist surgery that is likely to keep him out all summer and from the Ryder Cup as well.

Spaniards Antonio and German Garrido remain the only brothers to win the same European Tour event, in their case the Madrid Open back in the 1970s.