A triple bogey seven with just five holes to play at the Open de Espana has robbed Victoria’s Richard Green of a fourth European Tour title, and his first since 2010. The title, instead, went to Spain's Miguel Angel Jimenez, who collected his first national Open in 27 attempts.

The 43-year-old grabbed the lead at six under early on the back nine when local hero Jimenez bogied the 9th and 10th holes. Green tapped in for his sixth successive par at the 13th hole and was seemingly in cruise control as he stood on the 14th tee.

Miguel Angel Jimenez thanks the fans for their applause after completing the final round of the Open de Espana. PHOTO: Getty Images.

Then disaster struck. Green hit his second shot on the 14th into the trees and, after taking a penalty drop, he compounded his error by three-putting from 30 feet.

However, the left-handed three-time European Tour winner repaired some of the damage with a birdie on the par-5 15th hole. Jiménez, and 22-year-old German Thomas Pieters, both bogeyed the 17th to give Green another sniff at the title.

A par at the 72nd hole left Green tied at the top of the leaderboard with 50-year-old Jimenez and Pieters and the trio headed back to the 18th tee for the play-off. The trio failed to find the fairway or green in regulation, but Jiménez almost holed his chip from the back of the green for a birdie and a par proved good enough for the victory. Green failed to get up and down from over the back of the green and overnight leader Pieters, whose approach had come up short, saw his par putt catch the lip of the hole and stay out.

Jimenez’s hometown win came at his 27th attempt. He has now won 21 European Tour titles, 14 of them coming since he turned 40, and this hard-fought victory continues a remarkable season. He was in contention to become the oldest ever Major Champion before finishing fourth in the Masters last month and seven days later won on his Champions Tour debut.

He has since got married, and now becomes the first player to win twice on The Race to Dubai in 2014.

“There's no words to describe what it means to me, you need to be into my skin but I'm not going to let you!" Jiménez said. "It's amazing. It's my 21st victory on The European Tour and 27 times I played the Spanish Open. I have been close a couple of times. Today it was very tough out there but I got it in the end.

"All the victories are special, all are unique, some of them give you more money, some less, but all of them are important. You play to win and when you make it you have to appreciate it.

"I don't know if I felt nerves, but you do feel tension, you feel the pressure. For instance on hole 17, when I saw the approach roll down the slope, those things cut my mind and take away the freedom from my hands. I don't know if that counts as nerves, but as tension, yes."

Richard Green looks on as his par putt in the play-off misses. PHOTO: Getty Images.

For Green, who had won two of this three European Tour titles in play-offs and now has ten second-place finishes to his name, there was obvious disappointment but he said he was looking at the positives at going so close to winning again.

"I have to take a lot of positives out of it, it's the best I've played since the French Open last year," he said.

“I played well in the Australian Open over Christmas, just unfortunately struggling to get the job done. I couldn't count how many times I have run second on The European Tour.

“It's just a shame that when the heat of the battle comes along a bit of misfortune happens every now and again. The 14th hole cost me big time and I played pretty solid from that point in and probably should have won the tournament by two shots if that had just been a par."

LEADERBOARD

*1. Miguel Angel Jimenez (Esp)   69-73-69-73–284  €250,000

T2. Richard Green (Vic)   74-69-69-72–284   130,280

T2. Thomas Pieters (Ger)   69-69-71-75–284   130,280

4. Joost Luiten (Ned)   70-69-74-72–285   75,000

T5. Max Kieffer (Ger)   75-69-69-73–286  58,050

* Won at first play-off hole

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T15. Wade Ormsby (SA)   72-74-71-72–289   18,917

# For full leaderboard, click here