Women's British Open: Sherri Steinhauer, playing the kind of brilliant if bloodless golf that won another major championship not that far away from Lytham a couple of weeks ago, produced one of the great final rounds by a tournament leader yesterday to walk away with her third women's British Open. One birdie, 16 pars and a meaningless bogey on the final hole added up to absolutely no chance for the rest of the field - Tiger Woods would have been proud.

Steinhauer, who has ploughed a lonely furrow since winning the second of her British Opens in 1999, looked happy, too, not least because in the years since this tournament has been re-designated. "The other wins were great but this one is the sweetest one of all because this is now a major championship," she said.

The 43-year-old American began the day with a prediction that the class of player stacked up behind her on the leaderboard presaged a close and exciting climax, and then proceeded to make a nonsense of her own expectation. She parred the first three holes, birdied the next and the went on a run of pars that earned her a victory easier than the final three-shot margin at seven-under par 281 suggested.

In fairness, the responsibility for Steinhauer's misguided forecast lay with those about whom she spoke so admiringly, not least playing partner Lorena Ochoa.The Mexican bogeyed two of the first three holes yesterday and was never a factor thereafter.

Indeed only Cristie Kerr among the challengers offered anything approaching decent resistance. At one stage the American reduced the leader's margin to one shot but a bogey at the 16th ended her hopes and she finished with a 71 and joint second with Sophie Gustafson of Sweden, who had a 72.

Most British hopes were invested in 2004 champion Karen Stupples, who began the day three shots off lead, but the Englishwoman scuffled her way to a six-over-par 78 to finish two-over.

Laura Davies departed meekly with a two-over-par 74 for 291, while Annika Sorenstam finished with a 79.

Michelle Wie finished off her incident-filled tournament with an incident-filled final hole. The teenager hit driver into a pot bunker, failed to get out with her next shot, finally reached the green in four shots and holed a swing 20-foot putt for bogey and 74 for 294.