At 1.33pm, Sergio Garcia stepped on to the practice range and hit 47 balls. It took him 26 minutes. At 2.21pm, the Spaniard teed off in defence of what seemed an impregnable lead. It took him four hours to hit 71 shots. Surely just one remained.

Garcia has played golf since he was three years old. He has hit hundreds of thousands of golf shots in the intervening 24 years. He was faced with a shot in a million on the last green at Carnoustie. He was just 10 feet from glory. This one for the Open Championship.

He missed. But, then again, he had missed all day. The play-off was merely a matter of observing the formalities. Padraig Harrington was a worthy champion, but it was difficult last night not to think of Garcia with a heavy heart.

To the insult of losing the greatest tournament on the last hole will be added the injury of being called a "choker", being accused of being unable to deal with the pressure of leading by three shots on the final day. This would be a wilful misrepresentation of what happened on the links of Carnoustie late yesterday afternoon.

Garcia let the championship slip, but he did not throw it away. The 27-year-old Spaniard could not make a putt beyond the range of five feet. "I simply don't know how that putt didn't go in," Garcia said of the effort that edged out from on the last. However, it was a succession of putts that kept him at arm's length from the claret jug. This was a tournament that was lost in the country. From the fifth to the eighth, Garcia recorded 5, 5, 5, 4 - three bogeys and a missed birdie opportunity on the par-5. This run negated a birdie on the third and drew him back into a pack that were baying for blood.

He was sloppy in that period but regained his game. This was not an implosion or even a car wreck. It was a wearing down of an otherwise finely tuned machine.

Garcia, particularly on the back nine, played irons so sweet they carried a warning for diabetics. Scribbled notes in the wilds of the 10th to the 13th were necessarily brief as El Nino breezed by. They all contained the phrase "great iron shot". These missiles to the heart of the green were not converted into the wonderful currency of birdies except for the glorious tee-shot at the 13th. There, in the shade of a tree and in front of a packed gallery, Garcia seemed to make a defiant stand. Putts had slid by. Putts had stopped short. This time a putt dropped and there was hope for the Spaniard. "I struggled a bit on the front nine," he reflected later. His game had soared on the back nine.

Garcia, properly and obviously, admitted to nerves. This was understandable. The Spaniard is an emotional man. He is a player of tics and flicks. He once waggled so much before striking the ball that he resembled a hula dancer on speed. But yesterday he used his passion to bring him back into the tournament, not to lose it.

After the trials of the wilds, there seemed to be a chance of redemption as the home stretch beckoned. There were rumours and whispers and roars. Harrington, Garcia's only rival for the jug, had gone into the water.

At just after 6pm, Garcia crossed a bridge on the way up the 17th after a solid tee-shot. He passed Harrington who had put a ball into the water. They exchanged a smile of acknowledgement but the momentum had tipped towards the young Spaniard.

Garcia completed the hole in par and took a comfort break. He was not the only person who needed one. News had filtered through that Harrington had gone into the water again. It was a par for the Open for the Spaniard.

Garcia played smart. An iron from the tee left him a 3-iron to the green. He had to wait an unconscionably long time for the green to clear and for two bunkers to be raked. One could have smoothed the Sahara quicker.

The 3-iron found a bunker. Garcia found a way out. And then a way to lose. A missed putt such as that on the 18th is a blow that produces a haemorrhage of confidence. The Spaniard could not find a putt all day. He was unlikely to find one in the four extra holes.

And so he sat in front of the world's press at 8.20pm, cursing the fates that conspired to deprive him of his shot at glory. "The week is over," he said with a voice tinged with tiredness and seeped in disappointment. In seven hours, hope had turned to despair. Top-class sport inflicts its hurt with the skill of a diabolical torturer. This will hurt Garcia forever.