The Big Easy does it the hard way

Els' birdie on par-5 17th enabled him to join the four-man playoff, a first such occasion in Open Championship history. Ernie had a tough downhill putt over a ridge on 18th to win it all, but he left it short-and he was still lucky to get into the playoff.

The Open's playoff is a four-hole aggregate-score format (1st, and the last three holes), and sudden death follows if necessary. Because of the crowd control issues, the officials went ahead with two twosomes, although the foursome would no doubt have made for better television spectacle.

Elkington and Levet led off, with the latter picking up the key birdie on 16th. Levet, who held a one-shot lead on the par-4 18th, elected to hit a driver off the tee, when a safe play should have been in order. Perhaps following the footsteps of countryman Jean Van de Velde, who blew a three-shot lead on the 72nd hole at 1999 Open, Levet found the right rough with his tee ball on 18th and bogeyed the hole.

Give him par there, and Els would have had to birdie that difficult hole just to remain in the playoff. Instead, Els, whose even par aggregate score beat Appleby by one, was given another chance to capture his third major title.

Inexplicably, Levet hit another drive on 18th, this time finding a bunker on the left. All he could do was advance the ball to the fairway, and par was likely out of the equation.

Els safely found the fairway, but pulled his second shot into a greenside bunker to leave himself more work than he would have liked. After a brilliant sand shot, Ernie sank the nerve-wracking five-foot putt to win the Open.

Whew... The win was far from easy for the golfer nicknamed The Big Easy.

Major championships are fine without Tiger Woods, thank you very much. It was refreshing to see numerous international players battle for a major. In the age of 7,300-yard courses, which eliminate anyone but the longest of the long hitters, it is doubtful that upcoming majors will be as closely contested as this Open Championship, but we can at least hope.

Oh, by the way, that Tiger guy came back with 65 on Sunday to finish tied for 28th.

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