Tiger cruises to BMW title
Woods cruised through his final round without ever threatening to reproduce his heroics of the previous day as he settled for a relaxed three under 68 and a fabulous 19 under par total of 265. He still managed to produce a truly remarkable birdie four at the 9th after getting into serious trouble in towering trees to the right of the fairway. From there, his recovery scuttled across the fairway until coming to rest immediately behind a massive oak and apparently without any shot to the green.
From there, however, he came up with a fantastic pitch and run that he managed to bend around the tree and bring to a rest 12 feet behind the hole. He calmly sank the putt to reach the turn in one under 35 and still in comfortable possession of his seven-shot lead. He went on to claim his third eagle of the week at the 15th to move to 19 under par where he finished after 72 holes for his sixth victory of the season so far, having shot rounds of 68, 67, 62 and 68 and win by eight from Jim Furyk and the relatively unknown 25 year-old Australian Leishman
Pádraig Harrington added a 69 on Saturday to his previous rounds of 68 on the two previous days to stand eight under par entering the final round in a share of fourth place. He was still very much in contention for a place among the leading five who remain in contention for the $10 million (€6.8m) going into the final FedEx tournament, the Tour Championship, beginning at East Lake, Atlanta, on Thursday week, September 24th.
However, his game rarely reached the necessary level. He bogeyed the second and even though he got the shot back with a four at the par five ninth, he was struggling to stay in touch with the rest of the leaders. Harrington’s travails continued at the short 12th where he raced a putt from right of the green a good 12 feet past the hole and he missed the return.
Worse followed at the 13th where the Irishman took yet another double bogey. He drove into the left rough, found an unplayable lie after missing the green with his second and the resultant six saw him fall back to five under. Incredibly, this was the 13th successive tournament in which Harrington has run up a double bogey or more.
He made up some ground by reaching the long 15th with two fine shots and just missing for eagle from nine yards and remained at six under through the closing three to finish in two over 73 and in a tie for sixth, his fifth successive top 10 finish in the States in the past month. And he also moves on to the Tour Championship in Atlanta seventh in the FedEx rankings and in with a slight chance of the $10m jackpot.
Almost certainly, though, that will rest between Woods, Steve Stricker, Jim Furyk, Zach Johnson and Heath Slocum, who comprised the top five last night.
Meanwhile South African James Kingston hit back from four successive missed cuts in brilliant style, winning the Mercedes-Benz Championship in Cologne after a play-off with Dane Anders Hansen.
The 43-year-old, who had not made a penny since The Open in July, became the oldest winner of the European Tour season thanks to a four-foot par putt on the first hole of sudden death at Gut Larchenhof.
Hansen had gone over the green into a bunker, splashed out well from the wet sand, but lipped out from six feet.
A second Tour victory for Kingston – his first was the 2007 South African Open – earned him just under £279,000 and moves him up into the top 50 money-winners on the circuit after starting the week 116th.
The pair were level with four holes to play, but as Kingston rolled home a 12-foot birdie putt on the long 15th, Hansen three-putted the 195-yard 16th.
But there was to be another twist. Hansen sank an eight-foot birdie putt on the 17th and then Kingston, ranked only 141st in the world, three-putted from only 20 feet.
No wonder the relief when he clinched victory half an hour later.
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