Greg Norman - powered his way to victory (Allsport).

Greg Norman, golf's Great White Shark, rose out of the water in quite sensational style to land the game's biggest prize for the second time.

In one of the greatest Opens ever, Norman, who came close to giving up the sport two years ago, denied defending title-holder Nick Faldo his fourth victory in seven years with the greatest closing round.

Norman, winner at Turnberry in 1986, tamed Royal St George's with a 64. It was only one outside the course record set by Faldo on Friday and equalled by Payne Stewart today, and established the lowest total of all 122 Opens since the famous championship began in 1860.

The 38-year-old Australian's wonderful 13 under par aggregate of 267, which beat the record of Tom Watson at Turnberry in 1977 by one, gave him a two-shot winning margin over Faldo.

Bernhard Langer, second at Sandwich in 1981 and joint third in 1985, was third on 10 under - how he paid for a seven on the long 14th - with American Corey Pavin and another Australian, Peter Senior, tied for fourth.

Faldo, joint third round leader with Pavin, might have thought at the start of the final day that a 67 would be good enough to give him a 36th birthday present to remember.

But Norman had other ideas. He went to the turn in 31 with four brilliant birdies to go two ahead and three more at the 12th, 14th and 16th virtually wrapped things up.

The blond Queenslander has more than once in his glittering career seen chances of more majors either snatched away or thrown away and, once again, he added a little bit of late drama by missing a putt of no more than 18 inches on the penultimate green.

It trimmed his lead back to two, but it did not unsettle him. A superb drive and long-iron to the 468-yard last gave him the safest of par fours and the old claret jug was his again.

``Missing that putt was the best thing that happened to me,'' he said afterwards as the enormity of his achievement started to sink in. ``I had got a little bit lackadaisical and it kicked me into gear. I hit two beautiful shots on to the 18th.

``I just played great golf out there. To beat Nick at the top of his game and Bernhard, who is the US Masters champion, means a lot to me.

``We shot the lights out. My concentration was perfect and I didn't look at the leaderboards until the 17th. I was in a zone.''

The 27,500 crowd that watched and admired Norman's scintillating mixture of power and touch included 91-year-old Gene Sarazen, winner of the 1932 Open across the fence at Prince's. He said: ``I've never seen anything quite like it.''

In 11 previous Opens at St George's the par of 280 had been broken only once, by Bill Rogers in 1981. This time 23 players broke that figure and two of them - Norman and South African Ernie Els, who came joint sixth - became the first to break 70 in all four rounds.

The day belonged to one man, not two, however. Norman has won earned money than any golfer in history, nearly 11 million dollars, and has won over 60 tournaments worldwide. But the lack of any majors to go with his success seven years ago in Scotland left him an unfulfilled man.

After losing the 1989 play-off at Troon - following a closing 64 there too - his game deteriorated and his appetite went. He went almost two years without a victory anywhere and admitted afterwards he had almost walked out of golf.

Norman served notice of his intentions immediately, holing from five and 20 feet on the first and third and then from 12 feet at the short sixth.

The shot that put him in the driving seat, though, was an immaculate pitch to the 389-yard ninth. It almost went in, but the tap-in birdie gave him a position of control that he was never to relinquish.

Pavin had fallen back by this stage and it was Faldo and Langer, the world Nos 1 and 2, who were the biggest dangers to the former world No 1.

Faldo pitched to four feet on the second, but missed from similar range for a bogey on the fourth and was chasing Norman from then on, even when he made a 25-foot putt on the sixth - his third two there in the championship.

He hit the hole with his tee shot to the 216-yard 11th and made the putt for another two, but up ahead Norman was pitching to four feet on the next and virtually stiff on the 14th.

It was there that Langer blew his hopes of a second major of the season. Abandoning his game plan of using an iron off the tee at the par five he pulled out a driver and smashed it out of bounds.

Two birdies either side from the German only served to show what a bad mistake it was and there was no coming back.

The shot that won the Open was Norman's tee shot to the short 16th. It stopped four feet from the flag and his third two proved decisive.

Collated final in the 122nd Open golf championship at Royal St George's, Sandwich (GB and Ire unless stated):

(x) denotes amateur

267 G Norman (Aus) 66 68 69 64 (£100,000)

269 N Faldo 69 63 70 67 (£80,000)

270 B Langer (Ger) 67 66 70 67 (£67,000)

272 C Pavin (US) 68 66 68 70, P Senior (Aus) 66 69 70 67 (£50,500 each)

274 E Els (SA) 68 69 69 68, P Lawrie 72 68 69 65, N Price (Zim) 68 70 67 69 (£33,167 each)

275 S Simpson (US) 68 70 71 66, F Couples (US) 68 66 72 69, W Grady (Aus) 74 68 64 69 (£25,500 each)

276 P Stewart (US) 71 72 70 63 (£21,500 each)

277 B Lane 70 68 71 68 (£20,500)

278 M Calcavecchia (US) 66 73 71 68, T Kite (US) 72 70 68 68, M McNulty (Zim) 67 71 71 69, G Morgan (US) 70 68 70 70, J Rivero (Spain) 68 73 67 70, F Zoeller (US) 66 70 71 71, J Daly (US) 71 66 70 71 (£15,214 each)

279 P Baker 70 67 74 68, J Parnevik (Swe) 68 74 68 69, H Clark 67 72 70 70 (£10,000 each) £280 M Roe 70 71 73 66, D Frost (SA) 69 73 70 68, R Davis (Aus) 68 71 71 70 (£8,400 each)

281 M Mackenzie 72 71 71 67, Y Mizumaki (Jap) 69 69 73 70, D Smyth 67 74 70 70, L Mize (US) 67 69 74 71, M James 70 70 70 71, (x) I Pyman 68 72 70 71, S Ballesteros (Spain) 68 73 69 71 (£7,225 each)

282 J Van de Velde (Fra) 75 67 73 67, P Broadhurst 71 69 74 68, W Westner (SA) 67 73 72 70, R Floyd (US) 70 72 67 73, H Twitty (US) 71 71 67 73 (£6,180 each)

283 R Mediate (US) 71 71 72 69, C Mason 69 73 72 69, A Magee (US) 71 72 71 69, G Turner (NZ) 67 76 70 70, D Waldorf (US) 68 71 73 71, P Maloney (Aus) 70 71 71 71, A Sorensen (Den) 69 70 72 72, C O'Connor Jnr 72 68 69 74, D Clarke 69 71 69 74 (£5,327 each)

284 J Huston (US) 68 73 76 67, S Elkington (Aus) 72 71 71 70, L Janzen (US) 69 71 73 71 (£4,850 each)

285 I Garbutt 68 75 73 69, S Ames (Tri) 67 75 73 70, M Jiminez (Spain) 69 74 72 70, I Woosnam 72 71 72 70, S Torrance 72 70 72 71, F Nobilo (NZ) 69 70 74 72, M Pinero (Spain) 70 72 71 72, J Sewell 70 72 69 74 (£4,356 each)

286 P Azinger (US) 69 73 74 70, T Lehman (US) 69 71 73 73, V Singh (Fiji) 69 72 72 73, C Parry (Aus) 72 69 71 74 (£4,025 each)

287 R Drummond 73 67 76 71, O Karlsson (Swe) 70 71 73 73, J Spence 69 72 72 74 (£3,850 each)

288 James Cook 71 71 74 72, M Sunesson (Swe) 70 73 73 72, W Guy 70 73 73 72, T Pernice (US) 73 70 70 75 (£3,675 each)

289 M Miller 73 68 76 72, T Purtzer (US) 70 70 74 75, I Baker-Finch (Aus) 73 69 67 80 (£3,516 each)

290 D Forsman (US) 71 70 76 73, P Fowler (Aus) 74 69 74 73, P Mitchell 73 70 72 75, M Harwood (Aus) 72 70 72 76 (£3,500 each)

292 M Krantz (Swe) 77 66 72 77 (£3,500 each)

293 R Willison 73 70 74 76 (£3,500 each)