The pedigree is a good one, with a father and an uncle who have used careers as golfing professionals to nurture their bank balances, so no one ever questioned that David Duval had the genes for the game.

A query, though, hung over his temperament when the heat was applied down the stretch on a Sunday afternoon, as time after time he became the fall guy - more liable to collapse in a heap than stand upright - when a major prize was within reach.

Yesterday, in the 130th British Open Championship at Royal Lytham and St Annes, this 29-year-old American with the trademark wraparound sunglasses didn't falter, and finally achieved his destiny.

On a day of gentle breezes and bright sunshine, Duval, displaying a final day calmness that was an alien emotion when he was put in a similar position in the past, took control of the championship. And, in shooting a final round 67 for a 10-under-par total of 274, he had a three shot winning margin over runner-up Niclas Fasth, of Sweden.

Tagged in the same bracket as Phil Mickelson and Colin Montgomerie as one of the best players never to have won a major, Duval gratefully shed that tag.

"You only get four chances a year to win one of these," said Duval, "and simply to get into contention in a major, you have got to have a lot of things go your way. There have been times that I was guilty of making it a lot bigger than it is, this game of golf, but it is just a silly old game. Once I realised that, I was able to feel more composed."

Duval's unruffled demeanour was in some contrast to happenings elsewhere.

Among those who finished in a six-way tie for third place was Darren Clarke, who had started his championship on Thursday by double-bogeying the first hole, and who somewhat unluckily endured a similar fate on his penultimate hole yesterday, while Ian Woosnam suffered a two-shot loss in rather more dramatic fashion.

As Woosie made his way to the second tee in the belief that he had started his final round with a birdie at the first, his caddie Myles Byrne called him and said, "You're going to go ballistic." And then informed the golfer he had 15 clubs - including two drivers - in his bag, one more than the regulation number.

Having infringed Rule 4-4, Woosnam was immediately handed a two-shot penalty.

"I felt I had been kicked in the teeth, you just can't give a two-shot lead to the best players in the world. I kept thinking about it all the way round."

To his credit, Woosnam, who included an eagle three on the sixth hole, managed to put the matter out of his mind sufficiently to mount a challenge for the minor placings. In truth, however, with that penalty weighing him down, he never really seriously threatened to make a run on Duval.

And, with Fasth posting an early 67 to make giant leaps to the seven-under mark, the on-course threat to the American effectively came from Clarke, who played some wonderful golf all the way through the championship.

Having suffered a bogey five at the third, Clarke's surge exploded into life on the sixth. A huge, perfectly placed drive of 310 yards left the Irishman with 194 yards to the flag. His seven-iron approach looked good all the way, and actually hit the flagstick before nestling eight feet away. He rolled in the eagle putt.

Time after time, he gave himself birdie chances - but the only ones that were taken came at the 11th and the 16th, and the missed opportunities, particularly on the ninth, 13th, 14th and 15th, were to come back to haunt him.

Using a driver off the 17th, Clarke teed the ball down low and hit a low, hard draw. He was amazed to find it had reached the fairway bunker. From there, his recovery finished in the grandstand and, chipping from the drop zone, with 50 yards to the pin, he took an aggressive play with his third shot.

"I'm not going to chip 20 feet right of the hole whenever I'm two shots behind," said Clarke.

He hit what he thought was a perfect chip, but, like his tee-shot, it took a wicked bounce and rolled into the bunker.

Proof that the gods were against him came when his bunker shot hit the cup and flagstick, but refused to drop. To compound matters, Clarke missed the four foot bogey putt.

And his British Open dream had ended.

"That's what links golf is all about - if a couple of bounces had gone my way, maybe it would be a different tale. You've just got to take the good with the bad. Top three? It's a good result, not quite what I had in mind going out, but I played well enough to give myself a chance to win and it didn't happen.

"It's a tournament that I desperately want to win. Any major, but especially this one. Maybe some stage down the road in another major, the breaks might go my way rather than against me," said a philosophical, but clearly disappointed, Clarke.

While Fasth sneaked into second place with a final round 67, and actually led the championship on his own when a birdie on the seventh moved him to the seven-under mark - "I thought if I could make one more birdie, you never know what might happen . . . but I didn't," said the Swede, whose possession of second place on his own earned him a Ryder Cup place - the logjam behind him would later witness Clarke, Woosnam, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Billy Mayfair, Ernie Els and Bernhard Langer occupy tied-third.

And there was only further heartbreak for Montgomerie, who had led at the midway stage only to suffer rounds of 73 and 72 over the weekend to fall away.

Duval, though, was in a composed world of his own. When he suffered his only bogey of the round, on the 12th where he was bunkered off his tee-shot, his response was to birdie the following hole. He reeled off five successive pars over the finishing stretch that has been likened to a "brute," and his main concern on the 18th fairway was avoiding being trampled by the huge crowds.

Last year at St Andrews, Duval was the only player to seriously threaten Woods - but eventually fell away to tied 11th after a quadruple bogey eight in the infamous Road Hole bunker.

It was only later that Duval revealed the extent of his back injury, which was to keep him out of the game for 10 weeks towards the end of the season.

Yet, sitting with the claret jug within touching distance after his win yesterday, he remarked: "I like the position of my name below Tiger's."

For Duval, it was obviously worth the wait.