 Poulter clinches second place with a 10-foot par putt.
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On a day when only four other players shot sub-par rounds in the testing conditions, Harrington became the first European in more than a century to win golf's oldest championship in consecutive years. The last was golfing legend James Braid.
A spectacular back nine saw him record birdies at 13 and 15, before making a stunning eagle three on the par-5 17th to give him a four shot cushion going down the last.
Among other Titleist Pro V1 players to feature strongly on the final leaderboard, were amateur Silver Medal winner Chris Smith, who used 907D2 driver, 906 F4 fairway metal, 735 CM irons, Vokey Design wedges and Scotty Cameron Newport 1.5 putter. He tied for fifth at 10-over while at 12 over were Titleist staff players Ben Curtis, Steve Stricker and Robert Karlsson.
Titleist golf balls were used by 95 players (60.9%) in the Open field, while 88.5% used the brand in Final Open Qualifying at Hillside, Southport & Ainsdale and West Lancashire. Titleist was also the top choice in the iron, wedge and putter categories.
Harrington has already been cut from 16/1 to 12/1 second favourite to claim three successive Open wins (Tiger Woods is 3/1 for Turnberry and has been cut to 14/1 joint second favourite with Els, Furyk and Garcia, for the US PGA Championship At Oakland Hills (August 7-10) behind Mickelson (9/1).