CARNOUSTIE, Scotland — Francesco Molinari didn’t get the loudest cheers for the best golf at British Open.
He was overlooked for so much of Sunday playing alongside Tiger Woods, who caused pure pandemonium at Carnoustie by taking the lead in the final round of a major for the first time in nine years.
Molinari settled for the best cheer of them all.
The last one.
Amid so much chaos — seven players atop the leaderboard, six of them still tied on the back nine — Molinari played a steady hand by going the entire weekend without a bogey and finishing with a 5-foot birdieputt that secured his place in history as Italy’s first major champion.
“Clearly, in my group, the attention wasn’t really on me, let’s put it that way,” Molinari said, the gleaming claret jug in front of him. “If someone was expecting a charge, they probably weren’t expecting it from me. But it’s been the same the whole of my career.”
His charge was a 2-under 69 in the strongest wind of the week, the only player from the last four groups to break par.
Molinari clinched it with a driver that skirted the edge of a pot bunker, leaving him a lob wedge from 112 yards to 5 feet. He poured it in, raised his right fist and shook it lightly before slamming it for emphasis.
Then, he waited in the trailer to see if anyone could catch him. At one point, he went over to the practice green, but not to prepare for a playoff.
Molinari finished at 8-under 276, the lowest score in eight Opens at Carnoustie, the course where Jean Van de Velde threw away the British Open with a triple bogey on the last hole in 1999, where Padraig Harrington twice hit into Barry Burn on the last hole to make double bogey and still won.
“Just disbelief, to be honest,” the 35-year-old said. “To go the weekend bogey-free, it’s unthinkable. Playing with Tiger was another challenge. But I felt really good this morning. I felt I was ready for the challenge.”