It would take a flawless day for one of these players to win and collapses from Mickelson and Stenson. Then came the crushing blow – Stenson putting from off the green, at least 40 feet, and making birdie at 15.
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“There’s been many great players from my country who tried in past years and decades and there’s been a couple of really close calls”, Stenson said.
However at the 14th Stenson hit in to eight feet for birdie and Mickelson, so steady at holing out all week, made his first error when a three foot putt kicked off the edge.
The final round was a two-horse race between Mickelson and Stenson from the beginning, but the two leaders put even more distance between themselves and the rest of the pack quickly.
The Swede stands at 12-under 201, a lead of one shot from Mickelson, after an excellent third-round score of 68 in cool and blustery conditions on Scotland’s west coast on Saturday.
Lefty played bogey-free for a 65 and posted a score (267) that would have won all but two Opens over more than a century.
“It’s probably the best I’ve played and not won”, Mickelson said.
In the end, Stenson finished at -20, tying Jason Day’s record for best score to par in a major championship set at last year’s PGA Championship. “I had to get the head re-glued”, he said. “Hopefully I’ll get dialed back in tomorrow”.
“I felt like this was going to be my time”, added Stenson, who becomes the oldest major victor since Mickelson, who was 43 when he won his Claret Jug.
Records didn’t matter. This was about winning his first major.
Stenson took a one-shot lead into the final round at Royal Troon, only to three-putt the opening hole from just short of the green after Mickelson had already fired his approach to within two feet.
“I was under par on a hard day”, he said.
Stenson became only the fourth player to win the British Open with all four rounds in the 60s, joining Tiger Woods, Nick Price and Greg Norman.
Coming into the day, the prospect of a two-way shoot-out for the Claret Jug evoked memories of the legendary “Duel in the Sun” down the Ayrshire coast at Turnberry in 1977, when Tom Watson edged out Jack Nicklaus after the two Americans had separated themselves from their rivals.
The win was Stenson’s first major, and he also is the first Swedish male to win a major title. The 40-year-old Swede had waited a long time for this moment, his first major championship.
His victory prevented Mickelson from becoming the seventh straight American victor of an Open to be held at Troon.
The pair both got up and down from left of the final green for their pars, leaving Stenson one ahead going into the last round.
He gave Sweden a long-awaited major in men’s golf, 19 years after Jesper Parnevik lost a 54-hole lead at Royal Troon.
“It’s going to be disappointing for quite some time, but dealing with losing is a big part of the game”, Mickelson said of his finish on the NBC broadcast.
“It was one of the best rounds I’ve ever played…and yet I want to shed a tear right now”, Mickelson said in a press conference.
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JOHNSON FADES That is a good omen for Mickelson, who beat Stenson to win the 2013 Open at Muirfield, but it will also provide encouragement to Haas.
