Golf:Michael Hoey held off illustrious compatriots Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell to win the Dunhill Links Championship as Ulster players continued their amazing run of success.

Hoey, who began the week ranked 271st in the world, carded a final round of 68 at St Andrews for a 22-under-par total of 266 to claim his second European Tour title of the season and the first prize of €588,000.

McIlroy finished two shots behind after a closing 65, with the man he succeeded as US Open champion, Graeme McDowell, sharing third alongside Scotland’s George Murray a further two strokes back.

Hoey, 32, began the final round three ahead of McDowell and five clear of McIlroy, only for McIlroy to card four birdies and an eagle in a brilliant front nine of 30 to move into the lead.

The US Open champion birdied the second and then holed his second shot to the par-four third for an eagle two, his approach pitching past the flag but spinning back into the hole.

Further birdies at the sixth, seventh and ninth took McIlroy top of the leaderboard before Hoey hit back from his second bogey of the day on the seventh with birdies at the eighth and ninth to draw level.

McIlroy pulled ahead again after a superb tee-shot on the par-three 11th finished just two feet from the hole, but that surprisingly proved to be the 22-year-old’s last birdie of the day.

Hoey missed from four feet for birdie on the par-five 14th after hitting two drivers to the front of the green, but quickly put that disappointment behind him with birdies on the next two holes from close range to take a lead he would not relinquish.