David Duval joines an elite group as he pulls away from the crowd to win his first major. His greatest threat, Ian Woosnam, is undone by an extra-club penalty.

©Associated Press

LYTHAM ST. ANNES, England -- The massive crowd that swallowed up David Duval walking up the 18th fairway in the British Open didn't faze him.

He had seen it all before, only it always was someone else's party.

Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh at the past two Masters. Woods at St. Andrews last year, when the closest Duval got to the silver Claret Jug was on the flight home.

On Sunday, a celebration long overdue was all his.

"It's a wonderful experience," Duval said. "I'd go through it again."

Duval refused to let the tournament turn into the 18-hole shootout everyone expected, seizing control with a rock-solid game that carried him to a 4-under-par 67 and gave him the prize that had eluded him the past four years.

He never looked at a leaderboard through those wraparound sunglasses. He didn't have to. Duval always believed he had the mettle to withstand the pressure of golf's hardest test, and the trophy he held aloft was proof of all.

"I did everything I needed to do," he said. "I feel really good about that."

The stoic expression hardly ever changed until the last putt fell. Only then did Duval peel off the shades and blink in the bright sunlight over Royal Lytham & St. Annes, finally able to call himself a major champion.

"I don't know if I can savor this any more than I do now," he said. "I imagine what it would do is intensify my desire to do it again."

Duval finished at 274 for a three-stroke victory over Niclas Fasth of Sweden, the only one among a long list of proven players (the round begin with 23 players within three shots of the lead) who sustained any kind of challenge.

Former Masters champion Ian Woosnam might have been one of them. But after nearly making an ace on the opening hole, the Welshman realized he had an extra club in his bag and was assessed a two-stroke penalty.

"I did not really get out of my head all the way around," Woosnam said. "Everything seemed to be going against me."

Haunted by the costly mistake, Woosnam finished with 71 and was four strokes back at 278 with five others.

Three of them were major championship winners -- Woosnam, two-time Masters champion Bernhard Langer and two-time U.S. Open champion Ernie Els.

Duval takes his place among them.

The only player besides Woods to be ranked No. 1 in the past three years, Duval expected to be there all along.

"It's kind of a big relief," he said. "It's so pressure-packed in major championships, and then you put it on a golf course like this, where any minor mistake is magnified and it makes the pressure even greater. You just can't let up, and I didn't let up today."

He won for the first time this year, and became the sixth American in the past seven years to claim the oldest championship.

Caressing the Claret Jug, Duval scanned the names on the trophy and found his right below Woods.

"When you beat him and the other players on that board, you could look at it maybe as how the players felt beating Jack Nicklaus or Tom Watson," he said. "They know they've beaten the best player. I beat them all this week, and it feels really good. It feels wonderful."

Meanwhile, another major championship passed without Woods in serious contention.

Like so many others, Woods couldn't make enough birdies on a firm, fast links course littered with pot bunkers. He took triple bogey on the par-3 12th and wound up nine strokes behind in a tie for 25th, his worst finish in a major in nearly four years.

"I'm not thrilled that I wasn't able to contend down the stretch, but I had my chances out there," Woods said after 71.

He wasn't alone.

Darren Clarke of Northern Ireland was at 8-under and rolling -- until his tee shot rolled into a pot bunker on No. 17 and he took double bogey.

Miguel Angel Jimenez of Spain also got to 8 under until he fell back with back-to-back bogeys.

Final results

David Duval 69-73-65-67-274

Niclas Fasth 69-69-72-67-277

Ernie Els 71-71-67-69-278

Darren Clarke 70-69-69-70-278

M. Jimenez 69-72-67-70-278

Billy Mayfair 69-72-67-70-278

Ian Woosnam 72-68-67-71-278

B. Langer 71-69-67-71-278

OTHER: Tiger Woods 71-68-73-71-283

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