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Woods wins Masters tune-up
26/03/2007 08:30 - (SA)
Miami - Tiger Woods became only the fourth man to win the same elite event six times, winning the $8m World Golf Championships CA Championship on Sunday despite an inconsistent final round.
World number one Woods fired a one-over par 73 to finish 72 holes at Doral's famed Blue Monster on 10-under par 278, two strokes ahead of runner-up Brett Wetterich for his 13th triumph in 24 WGC starts.
"Conditions were not easy," Woods said. "I had to grind it out. I had a hard time reading greens and making putts. I had a tough time out there."
In his final tune-up before the Masters, Woods made a double title defence, having won the US PGA event at Doral the past two years and taken this event last year in England when it was known as the American Express Championship.
"This tournament's been good to me," Woods said. "I love this golf course. I've always played well here, and when it was decided that we were going to come here, I just thought that this was a wonderful opportunity for me to win the championship."
Reigning British Open and PGA Championship winner Woods, 31, won his 56th career PGA victory, fifth on the all-time list behind Sam Snead's record 82 and only six shy of Arnold Palmer's fourth-place lifetime tour total.
Only US legend Snead has dominated a single tournament more than Woods has owned this event, which he also won in 1999, 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2006.
Snead won the Greater Greensboro Open eight times from 1938 to 1965. Only three other men have won an event six times - Jack Nicklaus at the Masters, Harry Vardon at the British Open and Alex Ross at the North-South Open.
Woods also became the first player to win five different events on the US PGA Tour at least three times in a row, having also done so at Bay Hill, the Memorial, the World Golf Invitational and the Buick Invitational.
It was the second victory of the season for Woods, who won his third Buick Invitational in January at Torrey Pines. He joined Fiji's Vijay Singh as the only two-time winners on the US tour this year.
In addition, he bounced back from a 22nd-place finish at last week's Arnold Palmer Invitational.
"I think you have to analyse your performance and where you went wrong," Woods said. "Too many people are afraid to look deep down and look at where you made mistakes.
"That's not always easy to do, to be honest with yourself... but you have to take an honest look and have an honest evaluation of your performance."
That evaluation should stand him in good stead in two weeks, when Woods will seek his third major in a row and the 13th of his career at the Masters, the first major championship of the year.
Asked how he felt about his game heading to Augusta, Woods said, "very pleased."
It was Woods' 39th victory in 42 times leading after 54 holes, and his 23rd in as many attempts when ahead by more than a stroke after three rounds.
He began the day with a four-stroke lead and kept the cushion almost all day, stumbling at the finish but never giving his US compatriot a true opening.
Woods, who had the best final-round stroke average on the US PGA Tour in five of the past seven years, opened with a birdie at the par-5 first hole, but gave back a stroke with a bogey at three.
Woods sank a five-foot birdie putt at the fifth but found the rough near the green at the sixth and missed a testy eight-footer to make a bogey.
Wetterich followed the miss with a six-foot birdie putt of his own.
Woods had an eagle putt at the par-5 eighth but missed and botched a short birdie putt to settle for par. He recovered with birdies at nine and 10 but handed back the strokes with bogeys at 11 and 13.
Woods said his strategy starting the round with the lead was: "Shoot under par, keep going - didn't quite work out that way.
"I birdied 10, three-putted 11, I kept telling myself, 'I'm at even par on the back nine right now, so just keep plugging along and see if we can sneak one more birdie in here somewhere.'"
A lip-out on a six-foot par putt at the 16th dropped Woods' lead to only three strokes, but Wetterich missed a birdie putt at the 17th that could have provided tension on the final hole.
On 18, Wetterich landed the ball six feet from the cup while a cautious Woods laid up and hit his approach to the back of the green 50 feet from the pin to an area where Mark Calcavecchia had an earlier putt roll into the water.
Woods rolled the ball two feet shy of the cup to ensure victory. Wetterich left his birdie putt inches short and settled for a par. Woods tapped in for bogey and the victory.
"He obviously knows how to win," Wetterich said. "He's won 50-something times. I think the way to try to beat Tiger is you've got to put pressure on him and make him hit his shots that everyone is used to seeing.
"You can't let him stroll around the whole 18 holes with a four-shot, five-shot lead the whole time. You're just not going to win."
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