He holed from 12 feet on the third, two-putted the two par fives on the outward half the sixth and seventh and when he splashed out of a bunker to four feet for another birdie on the long 11th he was three clear.

It did come back down to one after he bogeyed the short 12th, but was to prove his last mistake and virtually nobody else could say the same.

His worst moment was probably the crowd scenes at the last - not as bad as St Andrews last year when fans stampeded and some either fell or were pushed into the Swilcan Burn before Woods finished things off.

Duval, having struck the perfect drive, had to back off his second shot as shouting continued, but he hit it to inside 10 feet and, with four putts for the title, took two of them.

Finishing leaderboard:

1 DUVAL, David USA 18 -10 69 73 65 67

2 FASTH, Niclas SWE 18 -7 69 69 72 67

T3 ELS, Ernie RSA 18 -6 71 71 67 69

T3 CLARKE, Darren NIR 18 -6 70 69 69 70

T3 JIMÉNEZ, Miguel Angel ESP 18 -6 69 72 67 70

T3 MAYFAIR, Billy USA 18 -6 69 72 67 70

T3 WOOSNAM, Ian WAL 18 -6 72 68 67 71

T3 LANGER, Bernhard GER 18 -6 71 69 67 71

T9 ILONEN, Mikko FIN 18 -5 68 75 70 66

T9 SUTHERLAND, Kevin USA 18 -5 75 69 68 67

T9 GARCIA, Sergio ESP 18 -5 70 72 67 70

T9 PARNEVIK, Jesper SWE 18 -5 69 68 71 71

T13 SINGH, Vijay FIJ 18 -4 70 70 71 69

T13 ROBERTS, Loren USA 18 -4 70 70 70 70

T13 ANDRADE, Billy USA 18 -4 69 70 70 71

T13 SMYTH, Des IRL 18 -4 74 65 70 71

T13 GOOSEN, Retief RSA 18 -4 74 68 67 71

T13 MONTGOMERIE, Colin SCO 18 -4 65 70 73 72

T13 JACQUELIN, Raphaël FRA 18 -4 71 68 69 72

T13 CEJKA, Alex GER 18 -4 69 69 69 73

T21 LOVE III, Davis USA 18 -3 73 67 74 67

T21 PRICE, Nick ZIM 18 -3 73 67 68 73

T23 CAMPBELL, Michael NZL 18 -2 71 72 71 68

T23 OWEN, Greg ENG 18 -2 69 68 72 73

T25 ESTES, Bob USA 18 -1 74 70 73 66

T25 WOODS, Tiger USA 18 -1 71 68 73 71

T25 ROMERO, Eduardo ARG 18 -1 70 68 72 73

T25 OGILVIE, Joe USA 18 -1 69 68 71 75

29 LANE, Barry ENG 18 Par 70 72 72 70

T30 ROSE, Justin ENG 18 +1 69 72 74 70