Padraig Harrington was "disgusted" with himself in Kuala Lumpur yesterday - for missing a two-foot putt which cost him over £17,500. Harrington had no hope of catching American Gerry Norquist when he played a brilliant 75-yard pitch to the final hole of the Malaysian Open.
However, pulling the birdie putt wide meant that rather than finishing joint second with German Alex Cejka and American Bob May, he was in a five-way tie for fourth. Instead of earning £33,981 he collected £16,434.
"A spectator clicked a camera as I putted - but it's my fault for hearing it," said the 27-year-old Dubliner. "I'm just disgusted. I lost concentration. It was harder to miss it than hole it. "I made only five bogeys all week, but only eight birdies, and to win tournaments you have to make more than that."
Paul McGinley also had reason to be disappointed with his closing effort. A superb 68 on Saturday had left him in an excellent position to challenge for the title, but he let all that good work slip yesterday, eventually handing in a 74 to finish on 287, seven strokes off the pace.
Norquist, champion in 1993, took the title again by three strokes, shooting a closing 71 for an eight-under-par total of 280. It won the 36-year-old £73,730 and, like Australian Jarrod Moseley at the Heineken Classic in Perth a week ago, a two-year exemption on the European Tour.
This bonus comes eight years after Norquist failed at the tour qualifying school in France in a week he described as "the most miserable of my life".
He was "deathly" ill, it was cold and wet, he scored 81-80 in the first two rounds and vowed never to return. "I've not been back to Europe since, even as a tourist, but I've already decided to join.
"Now I need to get more rain gear, thermal underwear, ski gloves and woolly hats."
Fellow countryman Christian Chernock caught Norquist by starting his final round with two birdies, but then committed an amazing rules blunder and fell away to joint 11th.
Thinking he had holed a 35-foot birdie putt from the fringe on the third green, Chernock picked the ball out of the hole. But it had wedged between the flagstick and the edge of the cup and, with a quarter of the ball still above ground, it was not technically in.
The whole of the ball has to be below the level of the lip. After long discussions with officials he was penalised a stroke and never led again, finishing with a 75.
"I didn't know the rule - it's completely my fault," said the 26year-old, winner of the Thailand Open two years ago. "It really hurt my momentum, but you live and learn."
Norquist was never caught again, and when yet another Asian-based American, Shaun Micheel, bogeyed the 14th and double-bogeyed the 15th, he was four clear. He did three-putt the next, but was never in danger of dropping another shot.
Scotland's Andrew Coltart birdied the last two holes and as well as bringing him alongside Harrington on four under it boosted his hopes of moving into the world's top 64 by the end of next week's Dubai Desert Classic.
That is the deadline for qualification for the £3 million Andersen Consulting world match play championship in California later this month - and Coltart is now battling for the last few places with, among others, Nick Faldo. They both play in Dubai.
