Jordan Spieth celebrated a "dream come true" following his remarkable Open victory at Royal Birkdale.
The world number three completed the third leg of the career grand slam after shooting a third-round 69 to win by three strokes in Southport.
It was far from the straightforward march to victory anticipated earlier as the 23-year-old surrendered his overnight lead to Matt Kuchar after a poor front nine and nightmare bogey at the 13th.
But he powered home by picking up five shots over the next four holes.
"This is absolutely a dream come true for me," said Spieth after being presented with the Claret Jug at his victory ceremony.
"I was able to drink a bit of wine out of this when Zach Johnson won it a couple of years ago and a lot of people told me it was bad luck and I started to believe them through nine holes today. It feels good to have this in my hands."
Spieth paid tribute to playing partner and runner-up Kuchar for the way he handled a long delay on the 13th which ended with him playing from the practice grounds.
He said: "What a great champion Matt is and what a class act. I took 20 minutes to play one of my shots and Matt took it in his stride. It sets a great example."
Spieth admitted that incident brought back bad memories of the Masters in 2016, when he squandered a winning position to allow Danny Willett to seize victory.
"Thoughts come in from my last scenario when I was leading a major on Sunday," he said. "All of a sudden it creeps into your head."
He thought he "showed some resiliency" in response and thanked caddie Michael Greller for helping him "get back on track".
That included Greller reminding him of a photograph he recently posed for alongside basketball great Michael Jordan and record Olympic swimming gold medallist Michael Phelps. Greller's point was that Spieth should believe he belongs in such company.
Spieth said: "Michael Jordan and Michael Phelps are the greatest to ever do what they did, and I'm not.
"But if you believe that you are, then you're almost as good as being that. I thought that was so well said. It was just such the right time."
Spieth's victory means he could now secure a full set of major victories by winning the US PGA Championship at Quail Hollow next month. He admits that opportunity has arisen far sooner than he could have imagined.
Spieth, whose Masters and US Open wins both came in 2015, said: "It's incredible. It's a life goal of mine, it's a career goal. Growing up playing golf, I just wanted to be able to play in major championships and compete with the best in the world, and things have happened very quickly.
"I look back on '15 and thought 'yes, I enjoyed it', but I never realised the significance until you kind of hit a low, hit a pitfall, to appreciate the high so much.
"This is as much of a high as I've ever experienced in my golfing life and I'm going to enjoy it more than I've enjoyed anything that I've accomplished in the past."
