Manassero pips Khan in play-off to become youngest ever BMW PGA champion... but Westwood has shocking final day

Eyes to the sky: Lee Westwood blew his chances on the final day at Wentworth

Whoops: Westwood looks for his ball in a water hazard on the twelfth hole during the final round

Champion: The young Italian Matteo Manassero celebrates with the trophy and uncorks some champagne (below)

Tight battle: It took four play-off holes for Manassero to emerge the victor

Local man Khan won this event three years ago by coming from seven strokes behind with a final-round 66. Here he almost did it again with a 67, and played beautifully for three holes of the play-off, before finding the water at the fourth attempt.

What a story this would have been, with his wife Lesley thankfully making a brave recovery from a life-threatening operation carried out a month ago to repair a ruptured diaphragm.

As for Manassero, he became the youngest winner in the tournament’s long history. ‘I’ve always thought this event was something special and I am the happiest man in the world right now,’ he said.

The early passages of play had been dominated by a man at the other end of his career. Almost 27,000 spectators had crammed into this historic venue and they did so in the hope of witnessing Lee Westwood pull off his biggest win.

What could go wrong? The sun was out, the fairways were packed, and the Westwood strut was firmly in evidence as he birdied three holes in a row from the second to take a two-stroke lead.

Fine fettle: Manassero won the play off to earn the title of 2013 BMW PGA Champion

Nearly there: Englishman Simon Khan did not have quite enough to see off Manassero

LEADERBOARD

Click here for the final standings

The short-game wizard, as Ernie Els had proclaimed him, was sprinkling his magic, and the expectation this would be one of those commanding Westwood successes was overwhelming.

Was that the problem, to sum up the horror of what happened next, as Westwood sadly lost his stride?

Or was it that he is 40 now and hasn’t won anywhere for almost a year? Or that top-class golf is the loneliest place imaginable when the finish line is three hours away and all your many victories have never included anything of this magnitude?

These are the sort of hard questions that had to be asked at the end of a round that became difficult to watch for anyone with the best interests of European golf at heart. Here, the spell was not so much broken as shattered into a thousand pieces.

Fell away: Despite early good form, Westwood barely made the top 10

In the muck: Westwood prepares to play a shot from deep rough

Westwood was a man in denial after coming home in 40 depressing shots, which was hardly  surprising. What could he say about this that was positive? What happened to your long game, someone asked. ‘I’m struggling with my swing a little at the moment and in the last round you just get found out,’ he said.

And that much-improved short game? ‘The short game was sound,’ he insisted. Well, it was if putting is no longer considered part of the short game.

In the early days of his career Westwood was a brilliant putter under pressure, his stroke sure and true as he knocked off trophies almost for fun. Now, the putts struggle to get to the hole in a final round.

There’s no shame in this, for better golfers than Westwood littered through the game’s annals have encountered the same problem. Here, he missed no fewer than four putts under five feet, and you can’t win tournaments doing that.

Fist pump: Manassero celebrates his putt on the eighteenth green in the first play-off hole

Westwood’s woes were mirrored by the Scot Marc Warren. Whenever Warren gets into contention these days he’s not got scar tissue to contend with but open wounds. He threw away the Scottish Open last year in heartbreaking fashion and bogeyed four of his last six holes at the Spanish Open last month to miss out on a play-off by one.

Here he did make the play-off, helped hugely by the unlikeliest of birdies at the par-four 13th, where he holed his third shot from 114 yards. That was his fourth birdie in a row but there were to be no more.

At the first play-off hole, he struck his drive wildly into the trees and then we were down to two.

Shake on it: Khan with Gregory Havret of France on the eighteenth green

Manassero and Khan both birdied it and then parred it second time around. At the third time of asking, both men made wonderful saves from the two bunkers that protect the back of the green. It was enthralling stuff.

Two other men at either end of the age spectrum also deserve a mention. Breaking your leg in a skiing accident at the age of 48 would finish off most players but not the remarkable Spaniard, Miguel Angel Jimenez.

In this, just his second event back, he shot a final-round 67 to finish tied fourth.

Then, one stroke further back, came 22-year-old Englishman Eddie Pepperell — make a note of the name — playing with such skill and nerve in this, his debut appearance in this event.

A tournament marked by controversy and bad weather for its first half, therefore, had ended in sunlit, epochal splendour.

That's min: Manassero cuddles his trophy and glugs bubbly (below)