Tiger Woods won his fourth WGC-NEC Invitational here on Sunday when he carded a final round one-over par 71 to beat fellow American Chris DiMarco by one shot. Woods finished at six-under par 274 for the 7.5 million-dollar tournament.
Woods' victory netted him 1.3 million dollars. In the seven years the WGC-NEC has been held, Woods has lifted 5.3 million dollars in prize money. It was also his 10th win in 20 WGC events.
The 25-year-old looked far from being the world's number one golfer when he went off in the last group with joint third-round leader Kenny Perry. Twice he missed three-foot putts for pars as he slipped behind Perry.
"Let's say I have had better putting days," Woods said.
Perry suddenly started to collapse as he reached the turn, dropping five shots in six holes, while Woods got himself together and birdied the 16th to move one ahead of DiMarco, who had already finished.
Ireland's Paul McGinley flirted with the lead, briefly joining Woods and Perry atop the leaderboard, but the Dubliner was finding too much rough to stay in contention.
For a fleeting moment, a birdie at Firestone's infamous 667-yard par-5 16th put him back at the top of the leaderboard. But Woods, in the final group, also birdied to take sole place at the top.
Then McGinley found the trees from the tee on the 17th and could only bogey the hole.
The Irishman finished sharing third place with Fiji's Vijay Singh and American Ryan Palmer and collected about 400,000 dollars for his efforts.
Sergio Garcia's hopes vanished at the 14th.
The 25-year-old Spaniard, who was only two shots off the lead at the start and at one time got to within one, drove into the right rough. He then hacked his ball into the left rough. From there he dropped it into the bunker guarding the left of the green.
He blasted out onto the fringe and two-putted for a double to crash to two-under.
Stuart Appleby lost his chance when he needed a drop to get relief from a car path at the 13th.
The Australian dropped the ball. It caught the edge of the path and as it rolled away his caddie, Joe Damiano, picked it up and handed it back to him.
But the ball had not gone two club lengths before Damino touched it. Appleby collected a two-stroke penalty to slip from four-under par, and within one of the then lead, to two-under.
A double bogey at the par five 16th confirmed the demise of Appleby.
FINAL ROUND SCORES (USA unless stated):
274 - Tiger Woods 66-70-67-71
275 - Chris DiMarco 67-70-70-68
276 - Vijay Singh (FIJ) 66-71-72-67, Ryan Palmer 72-68-67-69, Paul McGinley (IRL) 71-66-67-72
277 - Luke Donald (ENG) 69-67-74-67, David Howell (ENG) 70-68-70-69, Kenny Perry 70-69-64-74
278 - Colin Montgomerie (SCO) 70-72-68-68, Zach Johnson 70-70-69-69, David Toms 71-67-69-71, Jose Maria Olazabal (SPA) 72-68-66-72
279 - Rod Pampling (AUS) 71-70-71-67, Henrik Stenson (SWE) 66-71-72-70, Davis Love 67-73-69-70, Stuart Appleby (AUS) 68-70-67-74, Sergio Garcia (SPA) 68-70-67-74
280 - Thomas Bjorn (DEN) 70-67-72-71
281 - Trevor Immelman (RSA) 73-71-71-66, Kenneth Ferrie (ENG) 71-70-73-67, Jay Haas 76-69-67-69, Paul Casey (ENG) 75-68-67-71, Justin Leonard 72-66-71-72
282 - Jim Furyk 72-73-68-69, Padraig Harrington (IRL) 75-68-69-70, Lee Westwood (ENG) 73-72-63-74
283 - John Daly 71-69-69-74
284 - Darren Clarke (NIR) 76-68-72-68, Fred Couples 71-74-70-69, Bart Bryant 74-73-67-70, Nick O'Hern (AUS) 68-73-72-71, Rory Sabbatini (RSA) 73-69-67-75
285 - Niclas Fasth (SWE) 72-72-70-71, Chad Campbell 72-72-69-72, Ian Poulter (ENG) 73-69-69-74, Woody Austin 73-68-77-68
286 - Peter Lonard (AUS) 74-71-68-73, Adam Scott (AUS) 70-76-67-73, Stephen Ames (CAN) 74-71-68-73, Mike Weir (CAN) 71-69-70-76
287 - Tom Lehman 73-71-75-68, Geoff Ogilvy (AUS) 74-74-70-69, Stewart Cink 72-72-73-70, Angel Cabrera (ARG) 75-74-67-71, Fred Funk 74-71-69-73
288 - Shigeki Maruyama (JPN) 75-70-71-72, Brent Geiberger 70-76-69-73, Thomas Levet (FRA) 72-71-72-73
289 - Steve Elkington (AUS) 72-76-75-66, Marc Cayeux (ZIM) 71-75-71-72
290 - Nick Dougherty (ENG) 67-81-70-72, Tim Clark (RSA) 71-75-72-72, Sean O'Hair 70-74-73-73, Phil Mickelson 69-72-75-74, K.J. Choi (KOR) 71-76-69-74, Scott Verplank 73-73-67-77
291 - Miguel Angel Jimenez (SPA) 76-75-73-67
293 - Chris Riley 69-81-74-69, Craig Parry (AUS) 79-71-73-70, Retief Goosen (RSA) 77-73-73-70, Stephen Gallacher (SCO) 74-74-75-70, Thongchai Jaidee (THA) 73-76-72-72, Ben Crane 74-75-71-73, Mark Hensby (AUS) 70-76-71-76
294 - Kazuhiko Hosokawa (JPN) 70-78-71-75
295 - Tim Petrovic 80-73-69-73
296 - Richard Green (AUS) 76-78-69-73
298 - Michael Campbell (NZL) 72-74-78-74
302 - Stephen Dodd (WAL) 74-78-77-73
304 - Jyoti Randhawa (IND) 79-77-75-73
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