In the end there was no Cinderella story for Greg Norman, who began the day with unprecedented support from those hoping all the ghosts of a career noted for heartbreaking Sundays could be wiped away with one extraordinary round.
On another difficult day, Norman missed too many fairways and too many greens and no one can expect to keep making long putts for par when the pressure is at its greatest late on championship deciding afternoons.
The winner, Padraig Harrington, achieved what only Peter Thomson, Lee Trevino, Tom Watson and Tiger Woods in modern times have managed and defended his Open Championship.
Those four men were masters of the demands of the links and watching the type of golf one is asked to play by the British coast is to highlight just why it is the ultimate form and measure of the game.
It demands a significantly greater level of judgement and a control of the ball than we see on week to week professional tour courses in Europe, Asia, Japan and America.
Success is achieved by mastering not only what the ball does in the air but what it does after it hits the ground and the miserably high Birkdale winds added an extra element demanding of the highest skills.
Harrington was off to the steadiest of starts, making six solid pars and that was the exact start one suspects Norman needed instead of the three-bogey beginning he endured.
The Irishman then made a trio of errors with his long clubs on the three holes before the turn and Norman picked up a shot at each and actually took the lead.
Again the Australian hooked a drive and an approach and that bogey was followed by another at the short 12th where an iron came up short of the green and his hopes finished when a marginal tee shot found the corner of one of the horrible little pot bunkers that litter the long par four that was a par five when Johnny Miller won at Birkdale in 1976.
The Irishman in contrast hit a perfect long iron from the tee, ripped a middle iron into the heart of the green and then ran the putt down for the birdie that on reflection finished the championship.
There was still much to do but three perfect shots restored his equanimity and the two long shots must have assured him that he had the shots he was going to be asked to play all the way to the clubhouse.
His long iron found the middle of the final short hole, the 14th, and he was on in two on the best hole on the course, the long par-five 15th.
With Ian Poulter finished at 288, Harrington two putted for the birdie to fall to six over par and he finished off the hopes of the man in the pink pants with two final brilliant irons.
At the controversial 17th he took one of his longest clubs and climbed it up onto the back shelf of the green and so close to the hole that the eagle putt was almost a formality. With the Open now won he finished by tearing the pin out at the last with one more awesome iron.
There have been a few more talented Europeans over the dozen years than Harrington since he has been on the tour but none have