Too far behind to do anything about the FedEx Cup, Camilo Villegas put together a stirring rally on Sunday that was good enough to win the Tour Championship in a playoff over Sergio Garcia for his second straight victory.
Villegas overcame a five-shot deficit by making six birdies over his last 11 holes for a 4-under 66, then beat Garcia with a par on the 233-yard (213m) 18th hole used in the playoff.
The 26-year-old Colombian, who had gone 85 starts on the PGA Tour without winning, picked up his second in a row with a finish that brought the gallery to life on a sunny afternoon at East Lake.
He birdied the 17th hole from 12 feet to catch Garcia, then twice hit beautiful lag putts from outside 45 feet, once in regulation to finish at 7-under 273, then in the playoff to cap off his tour season in style.
Villegas, who was to move to No. 6 in the world ranking yesterday, earned US$1.26 million for winning the Tour Championship.
“I cannot emphasize how hard I’ve worked,” Villegas said.
Anthony Kim and Phil Mickelson each shot 69, and each had a chance to join the playoff. Kim, playing in the second-to-last group with Villegas, missed from 30 feet. Mickelson’s 20-foot birdie putt stayed above the hole.
Garcia missed a 20-foot birdie putt to win, then never gave himself much of a chance on the 18th hole in the playoff.
He came out of the shot, and it wound up in deep rough some 30 yards short and right of the flag.
His chip stayed in the collar of the green, and a chip to extend the playoff was well short.
It was the third straight time Garcia has blown a 54-hole lead on the PGA Tour over the last three years, including a six-shot advantage at the Wachovia Championship in 2005 and a three-shot lead in the 2007 British Open at Carnoustie.
“I doubted myself too much early on, and it cost me,” he said.
The consolation prize might be the Vardon Trophy for lowest adjusted scoring average. He came into the Tour Championship trailing Mickelson by one-hundredth of a point, and finished one shot ahead of him. The results were not expected until later on Sunday.
“Fun way to finish the year, have it come down to the last shot,” Mickelson said.
What was supposed to be the highlight of the Tour Championship — the FedEx Cup — turned into an afterthought. Vijay Singh effectively wrapped up the US$10 million prize two weeks ago in St. Louis, so all he had to do was finish 72 holes at East Lake and sign for the correct score to win the FedEx Cup.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier