Open glory for S. Africa's Oosthuizen

Rank outsider Louis Oosthuizen won the British Open yesterday, capturing golf's biggest prize by a stunning seven strokes with an accomplished display of front-running.

It was the biggest winning margin in the world's oldest and most prestigious tournament since Tiger Woods won at St Andrews by eight strokes in 2000.

The 27-year-old South African, a 200-1 betting shot on Wednesday, started the day on 15-under par, four strokes ahead of England's Paul Casey and with the rest of the field already left trailing in his wake.

Plotting his way around the Old Course links, Oosthuizen was never really threatened as he carded a closing 71 for a 17-under total of 272.

The runner-up spot, a distant seven strokes back, went to England's Lee Westwood who closed with a 70 with three players in a tie for third a stroke further back - Rory McIlroy (68), Henrik Stenson (67) and Casey (75).

"It's unbelievable," said Oosthuizen. "It was difficult having such a big lead to keep calm and focused, but I kept calm all the way. It's just amazing.

"I felt like I played really well all week."

It was just the second top-level tournament win of Oosthuizen's career after the lowly Andalucia Open in March and it came on a day of celebration back home for Nelson Mandela's 92nd birthday.

Ranked 54th in the world coming into St Andrews, Oosthuizen was the fourth South African to win the Open after Bobby Locke (1949, 1950, 1952, 1957), Gary Player (1954, 1968, 1974) and Ernie Els (2002).

It was the biggest upset win in an Open at the Home of Golf since American Tony Lema won on his debut at the Old Course in 1964.

World number one Tiger Woods, whose hopes of an unprecedented hat-trick of Open wins at St Andrews evaporated with a disappointing 73 on Saturday leaving him 12 shots off the lead, had two double-bogey fours on the front nine.

He battled back to finish with a par 72, but at three under for the tournament he was way back in a tie for 23rd place, his dreams of a 15th major well and truly shattered.

"I drove it great all week, hit my irons pretty good, and I did not putt well except for the first day," he said.

"I believe I had like nine three putts for the week, so consequently I'm pretty far down the board."

Ulster young gun McIlroy, who opened with starkly contrasting rounds of 63 and 80, finished strongly with a 68 which left him tied for third.

"I couldn't help but think about Friday (80) going up the last hole there," he said.

"If I had just sort of stuck in a little bit more on Friday and held it together more, it could have been a different story. But the other three rounds I played very, very solidly."