ONE more birdie over the four days of the British Open and Paul McGinley would have matched the sub par haul of the champion, Tom Lehman. In fact, the 29 year old Dubliner shot three more birdies than Nick Faldo, who finished in fourth place with an aggregate of 10 under par.

But the most free scoring player of the championship was the South African, Ernie Els, who would have been 22 under par had he succeeded in keeping a bogey off his card. Els scored 20 birdies and one eagle over the four rounds, but serious damage was done through a total of 11 bogeys.

The remarkable aspect of the South African's scoring was that all of his errors came at the first four and the last five holes. He was bogey free for the nine holes from the fifth to 13th inclusive, which he covered in a stunning 14 under par. Mark McCumber had 20 birdies and nine bogeys.

The figures for McGinley rounds were Eagle 1 (hole in one) birdies 17 pars 41 bogeys 12 double bogeys 1. By comparison, Lehman went 0, 20, 46, 5 and 1. Darren Clarke made the fewest mistakes of the four Irish qualifiers, carding a total of nine bogeys and no double bogey. He also had 13 birdies and one eagle.

Padraig Harrington had 49 pars, the same number as Clarke. But unlike the Ulsterman, he carded one double bogey at the 17th on Saturday and had a total of 14 birdies. Eamonn Darcy had 13 birdies, as had Clarke, but the reason they were separated by five strokes and 22 places was that Darcy's cards contained no eagle and three more bogeys.