I saw Barry Lane's ball blown 20 feet on a green next to where we were. It was a little bit of a mockery." Hawkes finished with an 85, 16 over par for the tournament and he was in good company.Seve Ballesteros came in with a 77, which is about par for the course for him these days, and he described the course as "unplayable." Unplayable for a round of 72 (bar Ames) but in between the fives, sixes and sevens, Ballesteros salvaged four birdies. "I would have called it off but it's the Tour that makes the decisions. The hole measures 208 yards and, from the dropping zone, 120 yards. Hawkes resorted to a sand-iron and proceeded to hit three more balls into the lake.

He finally holed a 10-foot putt to register a score that was eight over par for the hole."I don't remember having double figures at a par three and I started playing golf when I was nine years old," Hawkes said. Some players thought the pounds 700,000 championship was reduced to a farce but even in the unlikely event of officials being tempted to take the tournament to an extra day, they were denied that option. Today and tomorrow The Oxfordshire plays host to the European leg of the Andersen Consulting World Championship.Earlier in the day, most of the survivors struggled to break 80 Jeff Hawkes began birdie, par, par, par, octuplet-bogey 11 At the par three fifth he hit a seven-iron into the water. On the M40 there is a sign, near the course, warning drivers about strong cross winds. Robson, 28 from Basildon in Essex, won pounds 77,770 which, by about pounds 65,000, beats his previous highest cheque. This year he had played in nine events, missing the halfway cut in seven of them.At 7,205 yards, The Oxfordshire is long; throw in a furious wind with Arctic overtones and you have a recipe for hair-tearing frustration To a certain degree everybody was forewarned. Ames, who finished at five under par for the tournament, kept Robson at bay despite taking a seven at the 17th.

He made a courageous 12-foot putt at the last for a par after Robson, who bogeyed the last, had set the target with a 73 for 284. He felt the game was up when he hit a putt four inches left of the hole and it finished seven feet to the right "It was hit and hope," he said. Monty, who had knocked the lady off her stool, presented her with the ball, which was a bit like adding insult to injury.Faldo, the Masters champion, admitted he had lost heart after the eighth where he knocked a ball into the water and took a triple-bogey seven. Montgomerie said: "Perhaps we shouldn't have been out there." When told of Faldo's view, Monty replied: "Who's Faldo? I'm not interested in what he thinks."Ames won by a stroke from Jon Robson and by two from Derrick Cooper. Monty had asserted that the Ryder Cup cream would rise to the top here but in the event they were blown away, leaving the journeymen to battle over the riches.Montgomerie's round disintegrated despite the benefit of a two at the second where his sliced tee-shot hit a woman on the temple and the ball rebounded to within eight feet of the flag.

His action was construed as "testing the hazard" and it cost him a triple-bogey six Woosnam had an 82 and Nick Faldo an 80. Colin Montgomerie, who resumed at nine under par with a three stroke cushion from his nearest challenger Ian Woosnam, shot 84 to finish at three over par for the tournament. It included a two-stroke penalty at the 13th where he broke rule 13 by kicking sand in a bunker. The only man from Trinidad and Tobago to play on the European Tour, Ames won almost pounds 117,000 with a remarkable round of 72, level par. At the end of a long, hard slog, victory went to - aside from the manufacturers of bobble hats and windcheaters - Stephen Ames. They took steps to ensure that play was completed last night in the Benson and Hedges International Open but short of applying superglue to the greens there was little that could be done to placate players who were blown apart by 40mph gales.