The art of winning is what’s uppermost in my mind after watching the last couple of weeks on the European Tour.

Closing out victories in tournaments is probably the toughest task for any player. Many seem to stumble with the winning post in sight.

That was certainly the case at Wentworth for the BMW PGA Championship, but Scott Strange proved astonishingly impervious to such pressures as he cruised to victory at the Wales Open.

The contrast in the way the tournaments were won was as great as the difference between the two weeks of tournament golf.

First at Wentworth we watched a championship played on a fast-running course that demanded precision shot-making and course management.

Then the deluges hit Wales and the TwentyTen course’s Tour debut became something of a splashathon with target golf the order of the week.

Is it possible the different circumstances were responsible for the contrasting styles of victory?

In the PGA, Miguel Angel Jimenez limped over the line with victory at the second play-off hole over Oliver Wilson.

In regulation play Robert Karlsson was also a contender. None of the three players vying for the title could summon a birdie on the closing two par fives and the Swede ultimately three-putted from close range to miss out on outright third place.

Jimenez missed a tiddler on the 15th and Wilson had his chance to win on the first extra hole – although that seven-footer was a trickier putt to read than it first appeared.

Whichever way you look at it, it wasn’t vintage tournament- winning golf. But it was exciting, with the result in doubt until the last possible moment.

By contrast, Strange played exemplary front-running golf after his opening 63 at Celtic Manor and never surrendered the lead thereafter.

He survived a third-round dizzy spell that led to a 31-yard duck hook off the 15th tee and carded a brilliant final-round 64 to take his first European Tour title.

It will go down as one of the rounds of the year, particularly when you consider the assaults mounted by Darren Clarke and then Karlsson that provided a constant reminder to the Australian that he would still need to go low to win.

The scoring astonished course designer Scott McMurray who didn’t believe 22-under-par would be possible for four rounds on his new course.

For me, the nerveless manner of the victory was more remarkable. For someone who’d never made the top 30 on European soil and was in uncharted territory, Strange did his job with extraordinary poise and composure.

It was Woods-esque and it is rare for tournaments anywhere to be won in such a convincing manner.

There are fewer and fewer prolific winners around. This is why Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and closer to home Colin Montgomerie (in his pomp) and Lee Westwood deserve the greatest respect.

In tennis they say the last point is the hardest – it is often the same in golf. The final round is certainly the toughest for anyone in contention.

So hats off to Strange – the question now is can he do it again?