Matthew's failure all too familiar for Scottish fans

So at least it was a familiar note that drifted across the Fife countryside when Catriona Matthew failed to extricate her ball from the smallest and nastiest of the group of three bunkers that sit 250 yards from the fifth tee of the Old Course. Matthew had hit a splendid drive, the best of her fourth round at that stage, but when she slammed the ball against the face of the trap, and then had to play out backwards, it was clear that her title challenge had just expired.

But goodness, how she had lit up the place just a three hours earlier. The crowd that had gathered by the 18th green may not have been the biggest ever seen there, but the roar they produced when Matthew ended her third round by pitching in for an eagle two was surely the loudest heard all week at the Ricoh Women's British Open.

It wasn't just a great shot, but a hugely significant one as well. Matthew had just birdied the 17th - not exactly a familiar occurrence at golf's most famous and most feared hole - so by making up three shots in the space of two holes she had rocketed herself up the leaderboard. Six-under-par at that point, she was just three shots back from Na Yen Choi, the 54-hole leader.

Could the tournament have a home winner? The gallery that gathered by the first tee ahead of her final round certainly dared to hope so. North Berwick's favourite daughter was given a rapturous reception when she was introduced by the starter - although the reaction a few moments later was decidedly muted as she hooked her drive off so far to the left that it finished close to the boundary fence by the 18th fairway.

Matthew recovered to claim par, but when she hit a similar tee shot at the second - it actually crossed the 17th fairway and settled in the wispy rough near the Jigger Inn - it was tempting to wonder if she was so happy with her form on the back nine that she had decided to put her ball there at every opportunity.

The theory held good at the third hole, too, when she launched her drive towards the 16th fairway. If the entire country was as keen on going left as Matthew was during those early holes then Ed Miliband would have nothing to worry about. She actually posted a bogey at the third, but she claimed a par at the fourth - after yet another excursion to the other side of the course.

So there was a certain irony in the fact that she sent her drive whistling down the middle at the next hole, the fateful fifth. "I hit it just where I wanted it," Matthew would explain later. "Graeme [her husband and caddie] said it took a vicious kick to the right and it was kind of on the down slope in the bunker.

"I still shouldn't have made a triple, though. I should have got out with bogey or double-bogey at worst. It was kind of annoying."

It was also kind of fatal as far as her chances of winning were concerned. To compound the error, Matthew then three-putted from 30 feet and left the fifth green with an eight - the dreaded snowman - on her card.

Still, she battled on. There are some Scottish golfers, not all of them called Colin Montgomerie, who can be less than gracious in the face of adversity, but at the end of a day in which she had played 34 holes - her round on Saturday had ended on the third day when high winds brought play to a halt - Matthew was patient, friendly and helpful with the waiting media.

"I just wanted to go out there and try not to have a big number," she shrugged. "I wanted to give myself birdie chances, but obviously that didn't work out.

"It was definitely trickier [in the afternoon]. When we teed off the wind had definitely picked up noticeably so I knew it was going to be tougher."