A smudge of red was all that was left of the sun when, inside a marquee overlooking the Royal Birkdale course, Nick Faldo ended an after-dinner speech last Tuesday night.

Faldo, captain of the Europe team in the Ryder Cup match in September, did so by issuing a rallying call to Padraig Harrington, the man he expects to be his strongest player in the biennial match. At that moment, Harrington lay eighteenth in the European standings and Faldo thought that was not good enough.

“Get your finger out, Paddy,” Faldo said to the Open champion. Harrington responded to his captain's call in spectacular fashion. Four days after announcing that if it had not been the Open Championship, he would not be playing in it, Harrington won the game's oldest prize. It was one year after he had beaten Sergio García in a play-off for the Open at Carnoustie and he became the first man from this continent to defend his title successfully since James Braid did so in 1906. So we had the sight at sunlit Royal Birkdale of the man who a week earlier had been unable to lift a golf club now cradling the shiny old trophy. It is amazing what anti-inflammatory medicine can do.

Unlike recent Sundays at the Masters, Sundays at the Open have been thrilling, drawn-out demonstrations of the virtues of this old game played out in front of the most knowledgeable spectators. This year's was not just thrilling, it was one of the most thrilling. There were so many players involved in the denouement. Throughout a long afternoon, when the wind was gusting up to 40mph, it seemed less like a golf tournament that had been founded deep in the recesses of the 19th century and more like a grand prix around, between, over and under the magnificent dunes of this famous course. At one point, there were 11 competitors within five strokes of the lead; later, there were ten within four. Rarely have so many disparate characters been involved.

Expert View

If the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, the Open was won on the practice ground at Largs

John Hopkins

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BACKGROUND

• Harrington joins the list of Open greats

• Two strokes of genius, one happy man

• Champion shows mettle with defining shots

• Losing proves a habit for Norman

BACKGROUND

• Harrington's Open battle won in Largs

• Poulter more than mouth and trousers

• No losers at windswept Birkdale

• Test of skills for which few were equipped

BACKGROUND

• Westwood diverts blame for missed opportunity

• Wood emerges among the elite

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• Justin Rose's Open diary: I will take some positives from toughest week

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• Where the Open was won and lost

Greg Norman, 53, was continuing to defy his age and his lack of practice. It is said that all Australia stayed up to follow the progress of a man uniting a country by virtue of his spirited performance against men, in some cases, half his age. Ian Poulter, a people's hero if ever there was one, charged through the field with his first sub-par round of the week and, for one flickering moment, shared the lead with Harrington and Norman. Henrik Stenson, far from an ice-cold Swede, got into the mix and as men around him came and went, Chris Wood, a 20-year-old amateur from Bristol, was calmness itself, relishing playing a central role in the drama.

Could Simon Wakefield, who has never won a tournament on the European Tour, make the Open his first? He was in the thick of it, just as was Anthony Kim, an American born to South Korean parents, who threatened for a while.

Norman's remarkable efforts defied his age, his world ranking of No646 and, for a while, the cream of world golf. Any thoughts that the sentimental favourite might have had of being able to drink once again out of the Claret Jug on the evening of victory, as he had at Turnberry in 1986 for the first of his two wins, and this time being able to share the pleasure with his bride of three weeks, the former Chris Evert, faded over the closing holes. Norman led by two strokes at the start of the round, lost the lead but had regained it after 63 holes, then saw his chance lost by his own hand.

In fact, two strokes by Harrington, which were brilliant in conception and faultless in their execution, skewered the challenge not only of Norman but also of Poulter, who had birdied the 16th and then bravely sank a nine-foot putt on the 18th to maintain his challenge at seven over par. Poulter endured a wait to see whether it would be good enough, and soon found out that it was not.

As a boy, Harrington spent hours doing what young golfers do. He stood over five-foot putts and said to himself: “This for the Open.” Now, though, he was to win the Open not with a putt or two, but rather two long hits, totalling a quarter of a mile in length. They are arguably among the most courageous and skilful strokes to have secured a major championship in living memory. Taking into account the degree of difficulty, the distance the ball travelled and the state of the tournament at the time, they carried a higher tariff than Tiger Woods's chip-in on the 70th hole of the 2005 Masters and the seven-iron to within a handspan of the flagstick that won Shaun Micheel the 2003 US PGA Championship.

Harrington may never again play two such brilliant strokes in so short a space of time, nor two more important.

A five-wood from the raised 17th tee set up a shot that Harrington will never forget, and frankly nor will anyone who saw it. It was his five-wood again and this time the ball travelled 249 yards, landing on the firm fairway and bounding up on to the green before slowing to a halt less than three feet from its target. Seeing the outcome of that shot, Harrington must have thought of Bob Torrance, his long-time coach, and of the hours the two spend each winter working on his game.

In this moment of elation at the way he had first thought of the shot and then executed it so brilliantly at a time of extreme stress, Harrington must have thanked Torrance for being so prepared to endure the rigours of a Scottish winter as the two of them worked on Harrington's game. In those wintry days on the west coast of Scotland, they were two men united in the cause of making one man better. June Torrance, Bob's wife and Sam's mother, observed some time ago that she knew her husband always wanted to be associated with an Open champion and followed this by turning to Bob and saying, “I think you've found your man.” He had indeed. In Harrington he had discovered a golfer who had the virtues that he cherished above all others - a swing that could clearly be improved by hard work, a questioning mind and a desire to work as hard as required.

It all paid off when Harrington, having holed his putt for an eagle on the 17th to get back to three over par and take a lead of four strokes over Poulter, came to the 72nd hole.

Once again he was a lonely figure as he and Ronan Flood, his caddie and brother-in-law, assessed the second shot to the final green, the stroke that would settle it once and for all. At this moment, a silence fell over the assembled throng peering down the fairway from the grandstands that cup the 18th green.

It was a five again, but this time an iron not a wood. Once again it flew straight and true, leaving Harrington perhaps ten feet of greensward to negotiate before he could claim his prize.

At this most British of golf clubs, where only Australians and Americans had triumphed in eight previous Opens, an Irishman had joined their ranks in a way that caused the spirits to soar. No more would anyone dare to suggest an asterisk should be placed alongside the name of the 2008 Open champion because of the absence of Tiger Woods from the 137th Championship.