Charlie Rotheroe won’t mind that his golf in the final of the President’s Putter at Rye yesterday afternoon didn’t quite reach the heights it had occasionally on his march to that stage. When he defeated Ben Keogh 2 and 1 he joined Leonard Crawley, Donald Steel and Alan Holmes as men who have won this competition three times since the Second World War.

It was asking a bit much that the golf would match the clarity of the weather, which seemed to be atoning for its drabness and starkness on Thursday, but the final did attract a good following of well wrapped-up spectators and more than a few dogs. It was played at commendable speed, finishing on the 17th green less than three hours after it had started.

Rotheroe, who won in 1996 and 1997, is a gifted ball striker. His swing seems enviably fluid and he gives the impression of doing little more than walking up to the ball and hitting it, and then walking up to the next shot and hitting that. Would that the game was really this simple. Though Rotheroe played some occasionally superb golf over the front nine holes during the week, he was more muted in the final.

The two men exchanged a couple of holes over the first six holes before Rotheroe went one up after the 8th. The 9th may have been pivotal in that Keogh, with a chance to level the match, missed from four feet. Slowly the momentum was swinging the way of Rotheroe. He went two up on the 11th when Keogh missed another short putt and three up on the 14th when Keogh’s putting again let him down, though he got a hole back on the 15th.

They managed an extraordinary half in four on the 16th, Keogh improbably getting a par after mis-hitting both his first two shots and taking what one distinguished observer described as “a hack” from some distance back from the green only to see his ball end four feet from the flag.

So ended the Putter that had had one of the smallest entries for years. Though Iain Henderson, the defending champion, had been knocked out by Rotheroe in the second round and though the competition may have lost a little something as a result, it has a worthy winner in Rotheroe.

Mike Weir had a one-shot lead over the field going into the final round of the PGA Tour’s season-opening Mercedes-Benz championship in Hawaii. At 13-under, the 2003 Masters champion was one shot ahead of Nick Watney, while Daniel Chopra and Jonathan Byrd were tied for third at 11-under. Vijay Singh, the defending champion, had a 67 to stand at 8-under along with Angel Cabrera, the US Open champion, and Chad Campbell. “It’s probably the worst I could have shot,” Singh said. “I could have made four other birdies on the front side and it was getting a frustrating. But the swing is feeling really good.”