ALAN Mew's challenge for the best European Seniors Tour finish of his career came unhinged during the latter stages of yesterday's final round of the De Vere PGA Seniors Championship.

Tied for fifth place after three rounds (65, 74, 67), the Stoneham player was holding station in the top ten until he racked up a disastrous treble-bogey seven on the 16th hole at the De Vere Carden Park course.

With the chance of beating his best finish of sixth on tour - recorded in the 2003 Bad Ragaz PGA Seniors Open - the 51-year-old bravely cleared his head to par the last two holes, but still tumbled down the field after a round of 76.

England's Carl Mason claimed his seventh title in the space of a year when he defeated compatriot Jim Rhodes and Japan's Seiji Ebihara in a sudden-death play-off to win the event, after the trio had tied on -13 for 72 holes.

Mason won a shade over 50,000 euros for his troubles, while Mew finished tied 18th and had to settle for slightly over 3,000 euros.

The story of woe continued on the main European Tour, With Salisbury's Gary Emerson blowing a good opportunity to bank a big cheque at the KLM Open in Holland.

Battling to regain his Tour card for next season, the 40-year-old fired a sizzling 65 on Saturday to move from the lower reaches of the field into 17th place. Things, however, took a turn for the worse during yesterday's final 18 and Emerson subsided to a disappointing 75 and a tie for 52nd place with Southampton's Matt Blackey (73, 68, 70, 71 +2).

Had Emerson gone close to matching his 65, somewhere in the region of 40,000 euros would have been banked. As it was, both he and Blackey earned just over a tenth of this figure and are still a long way off securing their cards for next season.

David Lynn took a familiar route to win the Dutch event, his final round 66 for a 16-under total seeing off the challenge of Australia's Richard Green and Ireland's Paul McGinley by three strokes. The Englishman earned 200,000 euros for his victory and moved up to 22nd on the Volvo Order of Merit.