One poor drive cost me - Fisher

The 138th Open, Turnberry
Date: 16-19 July
Coverage: Live TV coverage on BBC Two, Online and the Red Button, live on Radio 5 Live and text commentary online on all four days

Ross Fisher will, over the next few days, receive ample compensation for his Open Championship heartbreak by becoming a father for the first time.

But he did not leave Turnberry to be at expectant wife Jo's side on Sunday night without reflecting on the one poor tee shot that did for him.

Fisher's drive at the fifth eventually cost him a quadruple bogey eight.

"I paid the price for one bad tee shot and took an eight. My heart sank," he told BBC Sport.

"It was a bad swing. I tried to chip it out and could not do it. It's a shame but that's golf."

In the end, Fisher's 75 left him on two over, tied for 13th place, four shots adrift of the play-off, knowing that he was just that one poor shot away from being in there with Tom Watson and Stewart Cink himself.

Yet Fisher insisted that he was still hopeful of staying in contention even after that one nightmare hole.

"After the fifth, I was still only level par with 13 holes left so I was very much in it," he said. "And I felt I could stay in it as 16, 17 and 18 have been very good to me this week."

"It's been a great week. I was leading the Open, which is pretty cool. And, in a couple of days I will be a dad so that's not bad is it?"

But it was not to be as, despite not dropping another shot over his final 10 holes, and his record on the first three days of playing the last three holes in seven under par, Fisher could not recover.

"I hung in there and managed 10 pars in a row which is pretty solid," said the 28-year-old Ascot-born, Wentworth-based golfer with a brave face.

"And it's been a great week. I was leading the Open, which is pretty cool. And, in a couple of days I will be a dad so that's not bad is it?"

Fisher had actually begun his final round in amazing fashion, opening up with a birdie three at the first and another when he pitched in at the second to lead the field by two shots.

But he had already dropped a shot on the fourth before coming to that nightmare 474-yard fifth.

And he was to bogey 7 and 8 in a disastrous run of seven shots dropped in five holes before he finally settled down to card that long run of pars.

Coming on top of his close shave at last month's US Open at Bethpage, Fisher knows he is getting close to a first major.

"Every time you put yourself in contention you are pleased," he added. "You want to perform with the biggest and best and my form coming in here was very good."

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