Barclays Scottish Open: Maybe it's an inbred trait but, for some reason, the French have a capacity to add a touch of panache to their sporting victories.

Yesterday, just a fortnight after his compatriot Jean-Francois Remesy won on home terrain, it was the turn of Thomas Levet to savour success, firing a final-round 63 - which featured a back nine of just 29 strokes - for a 15-under-par total of 269 to win the Barclays Scottish Open, his third career title on the European Tour.

"When you play like this," remarked Levet, who also secured a last-gasp ticket into this week's British Open at Royal Troon because of his victory, "it's like a dream come true. Every shot I tried to play came off, even the bad ones."

On a day of exceptional scoring, with no fewer than 34 sub-par rounds, Levet's elegance surpassed that of everyone else and eventually gave him a one-shot winning margin over New Zealand's Michael Campbell.

Starting out, Levet was seven shots adrift of the joint leaders Gregory Havret and Marcus Fraser and another 11 players were ahead of him. It seemed an enormous ask. As he walked to the 11th tee, just two under for his round, the task seemed impossible.

"Life is strange, but golf is stranger," Levet was to observe later, no doubt thinking of a run of birdie-birdie-eagle-birdie from the 11th which transformed his round.

The eagle came on the 13th, a par five of 560 yards, where he followed a drive with a three-wood approach to 10 feet. Then, on the 14th, he played an exquisite lob wedge - "probably the most unusual shot I've ever played in my career," said Levet - from a bare lie to two feet.

The pièce de résistance was reserved for the final hole, though, where he hit an eight-iron approach to three feet for the birdie that was to prove decisive.

One by one, the other challengers for the title fell away and only Campbell threatened to force Levet back out onto the course for a play-off. Needing to birdie one of the two closing holes, however, Campbell failed - his 15-footer on the 17th finishing behind the cup and his 12-footer on the 18th refusing to break - and Levet could finally savour his first success since the British Masters in 2001.

In winning, he became the fourth French player to win on tour this season and the third inside the past month.

Yet, just two weeks ago, he was forced to withdraw after one round of the International Qualifying at Sunningdale for the British Open. "I was just too tired, my battery was on one per cent and I couldn't go on," he remarked.

And of his performance in the European Open at the K Club, Levet described his golf as "awful. If Thomas Bjorn claimed to have demons in his head, mine was full of spiders and ghosts . . . it is unbelievable that I could come out here and play golf like that today. I went from zero confidence to thinking, 'shit, I can play this game'."

He has also moved a step closer towards realising his dream of making the European Ryder Cup team. "That was my number-one goal at the start of the season," said Levet, who has moved to seventh on the points list.

On tour these days, it seems that an Irish caddie is one of the requisites for winning. On Levet's bag was Ulsterman Owen Craig, who has been his caddie for the past seven years. "I can trust him, he's not the type of guy who shakes under pressure," said Levet, who claimed €545,208 - the biggest cheque of his career - for winning and moved to third on the European Tour Order of Merit.

For the three surviving Irish players, it was a day mostly to forget. Graeme McDowell, who at least can look forward to his first appearance in a major later this week, had chatted with Levet at breakfast when they had conjectured that a round in the low 60s was required to break through the stockpile ahead of them.

McDowell, though, could only manage a closing 72 for five-under-par 279.

"My game wasn't firing on all cylinders this week," remarked McDowell, "but I worked hard at it and I feel like I've made the progress I wanted to make for Troon. I'm glad I've got that out of the way.

"I've made improvements in my swing and I'm excited about it," added McDowell. "There are a couple of things I need to sort out. For one, my ball flight is a little high and I'm working on getting the ball down. But I'm not negative on my game at all at the minute, I'm pretty positive. My wedge play is in good shape, my short game is in good shape, I know I can hole putts and I know I can hit a lot of fairways. It's just about getting the breaks at the right time."

While McDowell finished tied-27th and added another €29,114 to his season's earnings - leaving him 12th on the Order of Merit with 767,635 - Peter Lawrie closed out with a 71 for 283 and Damien McGrane endured a horrible final day with a round of 80 that included five double bogeys for 290.