Mark Foster rues final-hole mistake as Thomas Bjorn triumphs

England's Mark Foster blew the chance to win the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles as Denmark's Thomas Bjorn won an epic five-way play-off.

The 36-year-old Foster was one ahead on the 18th tee but finished with a bogey six to finish 11 under par.

That put him in a play-off alongside Bjorn, Spain's Pablo Larrazabal, Austrian Bernd Wiesberger and South African George Coetzee.

Denmark's Bjorn, 40, won the title on the fifth play-off hole.

Wiesberger drove into a bush on the first extra hole and took a bogey six to fall out of the running before Foster had a second chance to win, but left another 20-footer short.

Bjorn had a real chance to take the title on the next, but left a 10-footer for birdie short. Then Larrazabal fell out on the second hole of the play-off with a bogey six after his chip for birdie hit the hole and he missed from under five feet.

That left Bjorn, Coetzee and Foster to fight it out for the title.

Bjorn pitched to within three feet on the third extra hole, but Coetzee followed him in to five feet and Foster to two and all three birdied.

Foster's fourth shot at the fourth extra hole ran 10 feet past the hole and he ended with a bogey six and dropped out. The Worksop pro is still chasing only his second European Tour win since victory in the Dunhill Championship in South Africa in 2003.

"I honestly felt like I made a good swing off 18 the first time around. It's just a game of fractions, you know," said Foster, a close friend of Lee Westwood.

"I just needed a break. I've just got to keep going. I've not had one putt in 36 holes (his eagle on the ninth was a chip-in) and lost in a play-off, so the golf I'm playing is second to none really.

"You wait all day, you make a birdie in a play-off and two other people make one. It's the game.

"I'm not going home with my tail between my legs. I think there's better to come."

Coetzee sank his birdie effort and Bjorn responded with a birdie of his own to take it to a fifth additional hole before Bjorn added the victory to the Qatar Masters title he won earlier this year.

Bjorn said: "I think when you set out in a play-off with five guys you're almost a little bit too relaxed because it takes a lot for it to go your way. But as we got rid of one at a time all of a sudden it became very hard. But the way I played the last three play-off holes, I can't be more proud."

The two-time European Ryder Cup star, who has now won 12 European Tour titles, was the joint first-round leader with amateur Tom Lewis at the Open in July before finishing fourth.