Britain's Mark Roe was disqualified from the 132nd British Open on Saturday over a scorecard mix-up after he had played his way into the third round clubhouse lead.

Roe, a long-standing European Tour pro, and playing partner Sweden's Ryder Cup player Jesper Parnevik were both disqualified under golf rules for signing for the wrong scores after failing to exchange cards, Royal and Ancient (R&A) officials said.

It meant that, effectively, Roe signed for Parnevik's return of 81 instead of his joint best-of-tournament 67. Roe stood just two off the on-course pace at the time.

The R&A, responsible for golf rules in Britain and the running of the Open, said it would be launching an investigation into the episode.

The 40-year-old Englishman told a news conference that he blamed himself for the slip which cost him a chance of the winner's cheque of 700,000 pounds ($1.11 million), easily the biggest of his career.

"I'm the only person to blame," he said. "I'm a professional sportsman and it's my responsibility to check the card."

He said that he not made a similar mistake in a 22-year professional career and could not explain why he had not exchanged cards as usual with his playing partner.

Roe said the recorder had not, as normal, confirmed the card was his.

"He didn't do that but whether I would have checked anyway I can't say," he said.

"I will now go home and watch the play tomorrow on the television and wonder what could have been. I will wonder that for the rest of my life.

"But although I will probably shed a tear in private, when I get home tonight and see my kids I won't feel so bad."

R&A secretary Peter Dawson added: "If the mistake had been discovered before they had left the recorder's hut it could have been corrected. But the cards are regarded as returned once the player leaves the recorder's hut."

He told the BBC: "We feel very bad about this. It's not the first time it's happened in championship golf but we do like to think we have checking procedures in place and we will certainly be having to look at them very hard.

"I don't want to single out anyone for blame. It's just human error, isn't it, on all sides here."

He described it as "a very unfortunate case". "It's tragic for Mark Roe. He's played so well in the championship. For two days he's really charged at the course and he certainly played wonderfully well. I'm sure he was looking forward to the challenge of tomorrow. What an awful thing to happen."

Parnevik told the BBC: "Of course, it's our mistake but I can't believe the R&A officials didn't catch it. They are very thorough here and we went through everything in the scorers' hut before they said you're clear to go.

"If we had stayed in the scorers' hut we could have erased our scores and all would have been fine.

"I feel terrible, especially for Mark. He's probably going to be leaving today and he played really well."

In last month's Buick Classic on the PGA Tour, Parnevik was nearly involved in another scoring mix-up when he forgot to sign his card and the situation was only rectified when his playing partner Tom Lehman, yet to sign his own card, sought him out in the showers.

Roe has won three times in his career, the last victory coming in 1994.

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