Colin Montgomerie survived two late scares and two storm interruptions to pull off his first win for 19 months on Sunday.

Just 23 days after he crashed out of the US Open with a second-round 82 - his second worst score ever in a major - the 44-year-old Scot followed up his third place in last week's French Open with victory in the Smurfit Kappa European Open at the K Club near Dublin.

Montgomerie fired a closing 65 to win by one from Swede Niclas Fasth having started the day in joint seventh place four behind.

"This is not an important win - it's a very, very important win," he said. "You wonder if it's ever going to happen, of course you do. You have self-doubts and I'm so glad.

"I'm thrilled with the success. I've never made a winner's speech and said I was unlucky and I was fortunate at the last two today."

The drama came both with his finish and, almost inevitably, the weather.

The Scot's six-iron tee shots on the final two holes - both par threes because of the saturated fairway on what is usually the 578-yard 18th - were both perilously close to going in the water.

For the second of them Montgomerie, bidding to end the second longest barren spell of his entire career, had to hit his chip with one foot on the rocks, but he got it to five feet and saved par.

Fasth, fourth in the US Open and winner of the BMW International Open in Munich on his last start two weeks ago, birdied the 15th to close the gap to one and then, just after missing an eight-foot birdie attempt to tie on the 17th, play was suspended again.

There had been a 48-minute hold-up earlier in the afternoon and the second one stretched to 82 minutes, the six players still to finish returning at 6.25pm.

Fasth gave himself a 14-foot chance, but it slipped by as well and Montgomerie was safe once Peter Hanson had failed to hole-in-one at the last and Soren Hansen did not birdie the 17th.

What did go Fasth's way was the race for a place in the HSBC World Match at Wentworth in October.

He just pipped Montgomerie for that by finishing second, but Montgomerie will come into the 16-man field if Fasth goes on to qualify through his performances in the majors this season.

Hansen, who lost a one-shot lead on the final day of the French Open last week, was two ahead when he resumed this time, but things tightened up after he followed a birdie at the second with a bogey two holes later.

Fasth and Hanson both moved alongside him and then Montgomerie grabbed a share of top spot too.

After three birdies in the first six he did then three-putt the long seventh for a six, but a chip to three feet on the 551-yard 10th was followed by a 30-footer at the next.

As he bogeyed the 12th off a bad drive, however, Fasth hit a brilliant second to 15 feet on the 10th and, although he narrowly failed with the eagle attempt, the tap-in made him the outright leader when play was first suspended.

That quickly changed on the resumption, however. Montgomerie's first shot back was a 15-foot birdie putt from the fringe of the 15th, while Fasth's was a bad pull left of the green on the short 12th.

The two-stroke swing put Montgomerie ahead and after scrambling his two closing pars he waited in the locker room to see if he had done enough to take the title without a play-off.

Fasth followed his bogey with another at the 13th when he pulled his second shot into the water, but when his pitch to the 15th spun back to four feet it set up a tense climax.

He had just missed an eight-foot birdie chance to tie on the 17th when the sirens sounded again to tell the players to stop because of another storm on the way.

Just like the US Open at Pebble Beach in 1992, Montgomerie had to wait two hours to see if he had done enough. Unlike then, though, he had this time.

It was a close-run thing for the one Open Championship place up for grabs as well, but in the end it went to Swede Pelle Edberg, thanks to the performance of his life.

Never previously higher than ninth in any Tour event, Edberg had led at halfway and then fallen back to 14th with a Saturday 73, but he roared back with a 66 for a share of third place that should also secure his card for next season.

The 28-year-old bandana-wearer would have been knocked out of the Open if Thomas Levet, runner-up to Ernie Els at Muirfield in 2002, had chipped in on the last or if Gregory Havret had also birdied the hole.

But the two Frenchmen failed and instead will now take part in final qualifying in Scotland tomorrow and Tuesday.

Edberg made it through end in the end based on his better last round compared to Havret.

Levet was not happy about the short notice given that play was resuming after the first rain delay.

"They told us in the players' room that we were starting again in 10 minutes. We rushed to the cars and I had no rhythm," he said.

Fasth joined Levet's criticisms afterwards, saying that not being able to warm up properly cost him dearly.

Collated Scores:

269 Colin Montgomerie 69 64 71 65

270 Niclas Fasth (Swe) 65 68 70 67

271 Peter Hanson (Swe) 68 69 66 68, Anthony Wall 68 72 66 65, Pelle Edberg (Swe) 67 65 73 66, Gregory Havret (Fra) 65 70 68 68

272 Soren Hansen (Den) 69 68 63 72, Peter Hedblom (Swe) 68 68 68 68, Peter O'Malley (Aus) 72 68 63 69, Thomas Levet (Fra) 70 67 68 67

273 Robert Rock 65 71 66 71, Soren Kjeldsen (Den) 66 71 69 67, Simon Khan 67 67 71 68, Raphael Jacquelin (Fra) 71 69 67 66

274 Mikko Ilonen (Fin) 67 72 69 66, Phillip Archer 70 69 66 69, Per-Ulrik Johansson (Swe) 69 69 69 67

275 Graeme McDowell 69 70 65 71, Alexander Noren (Swe) 70 71 70 64, Joakim Haeggman (Swe) 68 70 68 69, Richard Green (Aus) 69 67 71 68, Ariel Canete (Arg) 67 71 72 65, Peter Fowler (Aus) 70 71 67 67, Rafael Cabrera Bello (Spa) 69 71 68 67

276 Steve Webster 70 70 65 71, Martin Erlandsson (Swe) 69 66 71 70, Marc Warren 69 69 70 68, Markus Brier (Aut) 71 68 70 67, Ricardo Gonzalez (Arg) 73 68 64 71, David Frost (Rsa) 68 66 70 72, Jyoti Randhawa (Ind) 65 70 71 70, Paul Broadhurst 72 69 67 68, Thongchai Jaidee (Tha) 71 67 70 68

277 Jeev Milkha Singh (Ind) 67 73 69 68, Christian Cevaer (Fra) 71 70 70 66, David Griffiths 70 70 68 69, Andres Romero (Arg) 73 67 71 66, Gonzalo Fdez-Castano (Spa) 70 69 70 68, Simon Wakefield 70 69 65 73, Johan Edfors (Swe) 69 70 68 70

278 Jean-Baptiste Gonnet (Fra) 69 68 67 74, Patrik Sjoland (Swe) 66 69 72 71, Sven Struver (Ger) 73 67 66 72, Mads Vibe-Hastrup (Den) 68 72 71 67

279 Robert Jan Derksen (Ned) 73 66 72 68, David Howell 69 72 69 69, Alastair Forsyth 72 68 69 70, Marcel Siem (Ger) 68 73 71 67, Terry Price (Aus) 71 69 69 70, Graeme Storm 71 67 74 67

280 Michael Campbell (Nzl) 68 71 69 72, Stephen Dodd 66 73 71 70, Paul Lawrie 70 69 72 69, Maarten Lafeber (Ned) 64 72 72 72, Padraig Harrington 71 68 69 72

281 Gary Lockerbie 71 70 69 71, Jesus Maria Arruti (Spa) 68 72 74 67, David Higgins 73 68 68 72, Ian Garbutt 67 73 71 70

282 Francesco Molinari (Ita) 71 70 72 69, Yong-eun Yang (Kor) 73 68 70 71, Ignacio Garrido (Spa) 69 69 66 78, Angel Cabrera (Arg) 71 69 74 68

284 Lee Slattery 72 68 72 72, Mark Pilkington 71 70 75 68, Jose Manuel Lara (Spa) 68 72 73 71

285 Rafael Echenique (Arg) 72 69 74 70

287 Thaworn Wiratchant (Tha) 68 73 69 77