In a phenomenal display of power between golf's two biggest sluggers, Tiger Woods outlasted John Daly in the American Express Championship because of a 3-foot putt.
Woods made up two shots over the final three holes Sunday to force a playoff, then won on the second extra hole when Daly three-putted for bogey from 15 feet on the 16th, badly pulling his short par putt.
It was a somber end to a riveting afternoon along the shores of Lake Merced.
Woods closed with a 3-under 67 and won the American Express Championship for the fourth time in six starts. He extended his dominance in these World Golf Championships, winning his 10th in 19 events.
It was his sixth victory of the year, and given a swing he couldn't trust until the end and sore ribs that required treatment, this was as impressive as any.
Daly shot 69 and had two chances to win. He missed a 16-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole in regulation, then had a birdie putt from 15 feet on the second extra hole that just grazed the left side of the cup.
Fans scrambled to the next hole, none of them imagining that Daly would miss from 3 feet.
"I feel so bad for J.D.," Woods said. "You never, ever want to win a golf tournament like that."
But he'll take it, along with the US$1.3 million prize that pushed his season to over US$9.9 million and, with two tournaments left on his schedule, gave him a shot at beating the record set by Vijay Singh a year ago.
Woods and Daly shot 10-under 270, and only 24 of the 71 players who started the event finished under par.
It was the third time this year Woods has rallied in the final round to win, and his second victory in a playoff to increase his career record to 8-1 in extra holes. The other was the Masters, which he won with a birdie.
"I know Tiger didn't want to win that way," Daly said. "I didn't want to lose that way. It's very disappointing."
The crowd felt anything but that.
Their loyalties were evenly divided, and they about screamed themselves hoarse on the 18th hole in the playoff, the most daunting hole at Harding Park that requires a tee shot over Lake Merced and a row of cypress trees.
First came Woods, hammering away into the blue skies, the roar shaking the grounds when it found the middle of the fairway, then rolled into the first cut. Next up was Daly, a grip and a rip, then reaching over to pick up his cigarette as the ball landed some 10 yards ahead of Woods.
It was like that all day.
Woods was three shots behind and finding more shade in the trees than sunshine on the fairways, but he fired off three straight birdies, the last one an approach from 205 yards into 3 feet to catch Daly at 10 under.
Daly responded by chipping in from 55 feet across the 13th green for birdie. In the group ahead, Woods' went from rough-to-rough on the 14th and couldn't recover, making bogey to fall two behind, and Daly again had control.
Daly being Daly, it wasn't that simple.
He had a two-shot lead with three holes to play when Woods hit a wedge that stopped 4 feet away for birdie on the 16th, and Daly three-putted the 17th.
For all his length, a short putt cost him the lead.
Another one cost him the tournament.
Chile's Nicole Perrot found out that even-par at the Longs Drug Challenge was a good enough score to secure her first LPGA Tour victory.
On a day when a low round was tough to come by, the 21-year-old Perrot rallied from a two-shot deficit, overcoming three bogeys on the front nine with three birdies on the back to beat South Korea's Han Hee-won by a stroke.
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