The 208Pb(d,p) 209Pb reaction has been studied at deutron bombarding energies of 8, 9, 10, 16.5 and 18.7 MeV. The single-particle character of the low-lying levels of 209Pb has been exploited to assess the accuracy of the spectroscopic factors obtained from a distorted wave Born approximation analysis of the proton angular distributions. Various corrections to the standard zero-range calculations are investigated and the special advantages of the experiments performed at energies below the Coulomb barrier are evaluated.