The gracious champ in an iron mask

Two years ago, when Duval was winning events for fun, including a final round 59 to win the Bob Hope Classic, he became the last man to hold the world No 1 slot before Woods took out a mortgage on it. Since then, though, he had slipped into the forlorn chasing pack, burdened like Colin Montgomerie and Phil Mickelson with the "best never to win a major" millstone.

Here, though, with his pal's name eerily absent from the leaderboards, Duval was released to produce a command performance which I thought, having followed him from the parfive sixth, where he birdied his way into a lead which he rarely looked like relinquishing, bore comparison with Woods at his nerveless best.

Beating Woods and the rest, said Duval, had made him understand how players of a previous generation must have felt when they managed to defeat Jack

Nicklaus or Tom Watson in a major. Now, just as the head-to-head classics of those two once entranced us, it would be a boon for present day golf if this 29-year-old could start forging the same sort of compelling rivalry with Woods in the big ones.

It is possible. Duval finished runner-up seven times in 92 regular tour events before he won his first and he has landed a dozen in four seasons since. Similarly, he has had to endure a handful of near misses in 26 majors - the most agonising being his failure in the 1998 US Masters and the most recent his two-shot defeat by Woods this year at Augusta.

Now, he imagined, his "drive, the desire to do it again" would only intensify. And, psychologically, it would be easier next time, having discovered what Monty was still groping around to find.

About 20 players set off yesterday with a shot at this most open of Opens but one by one they soared and crashed. Duval's class and concentration set him apart to give us the champion that this exhilarating edition deserved.

Watching at home in Florida, Duval's dad Bob, no mean professional in his day, recognised "David was calm from the beginning". He added: "I can tell when he gets frustrated and there was no sign. I thought he played just awesome." It was the right word.

Lytham again proved a brutish test of accuracy rather than power - the final tally of 1,542 bogeys and 260 double-bogeys or worse told the story - and Duval's quality in both departments over the weekend was the key. His length off the tee helped him play the three par-fives all week in an unsurpassed 10-under and yesterday he missed only three fairways. His putting, which saved him from missing the cut, was immaculate over the four days.

So lacking in emotion beneath those ugly shades - he wears them because of an eye stigma which causes sensitivity to light - it was impossible to gauge what he must be thinking as cheers echoed all round the course for the British challengers while he and Bernhard Langer plodded on slowly - officials warned them about their crawl at one point - in front of much smaller and quieter galleries.

He never once appeared to look at a scoreboard, even when Miguel Angel Jimenez got to within one shot of him and Darren Clarke two, and claimed, like some Stateside version of Jimmy Greaves, that what he'd actually started thinking was that "I've made too big a deal of this in the past. It's just a game, a silly old game".

With his mind thus freed, he blasted a six-iron from thick rough on the 15th and flew it 220 yards to within 15ft of the pin. Yes, very silly.

With his strange mix of arrogance, introspection and a sense of humour so dry it is sometimes lost on his compatriots, Duval can come across as a cold fish, easier to admire than to like. No wonder he seems complex. At nine, he donated bone marrow for an operation to save his 12-year-old brother Brent, who was suffering from aplastic anaemia. But the boy died, the stress ended his parents' marriage and Duval, feeling guilt about the death, used golf as his escape from trauma while determined to bottle his emotions.

So a doff of the black cap, a quiet smile and a wave was, typically, the extent of his wild victory celebration but his gracious, amusing victory speech to the crowd revealed that well-hidden warmer side. "I will do my best to to represent this championship in a dignified and honourable fashion," he told them, and he surely will.

His dad had told him to bring back the jug so they could pour Louis XIII cognac from it and when, over a glass, he sees his name engraved there beneath Woods, Duval may reflect that it is only the beginning, perhaps his marker for greatness.