Golf: Unheralded Scot makes golf history

CARNOUSTIE - How anonymous was Scotsman Paul Lawrie, winner of the British Open golf championship?

Ranked 159th in the world, he was only the second man outside the top 100 to win a major, after John Daly's 1991 United States Open triumph as world No 168.

A week ago Lawrie did not even know he would be playing in the tournament, as he had to battle through two rounds at a nearby course before becoming the first man to win a major after making the field through qualifying.

On the final morning he rated himself no chance, since he was 10 shots off the lead.

And to accentuate it all, he reckoned his mum and dad probably had not watched it.

"Hopefully, they watched it, but probably they won't have done," the 30-year-old said of his parents, who are on holiday in Spain.

"I can't get hold of my wife. Obviously, she has put the phone on answer-machine because everybody is trying to ring her," he said a full hour after the win.

"I'll try and speak to her, hopefully in the next half-hour if I can. I would imagine the phone is just red hot at home."

Lawrie's wife, Marian, had stayed home in Aberdeen, 70km away, to mind their seven-month-old son.

He became the first Scot to win the Open since Sandy Lyle in 1985 at Sandwich, and the first to win on a home course since Willie Auchterlonie in 1893.

"I can't believe it. I'm going to cry," he said at the trophy presentation. "Thanks to everyone who knows me, which is a lot of you now. You all clapped for me.

"This is incredible. I don't know how I kept my cool for the four extra holes. I took it one at a time.

"Winning in front of a Scottish crowd. It can't get better. I'm a local boy. Thanks a lot."

Lawrie had won only two European tour events since ambitiously turning professional as a 17-year-old on a four handicap.

His previous highlight was being equal sixth in the 1993 British Open.

He will always be remembered as the man who won the tournament Jean Van de Velde coughed up, after the Frenchman's triple bogey on the 72nd hole led to a three-way playoff.

But Lawrie's play on the day - his four-under 67 to equal to the tournament low score, and his two superb birdies in the last half of the four-hole playoff - was of the highest quality.

Lawrie, who has now been catapulted into the European team for the Ryder Cup in September, said winning at home made his Open triumph more memorable.

"It's great to win the Open, no matter where it is, but obviously here it is extra special for me, being close to home," he said.

"The playoff was just a circus. Everyone was inside the ropes and shouting your name out."

The winning done, the sterling 350,000 ($1,058,000) cheque pocketed, all that was left was the spending.

"I shall be buying myself a Ferrari, I hope," he said with the smile of a man whose name will always remain on the Open's claret jug trophy, even if the luck involved with his win will not.