South Africa's Trevor Immelman and Rory Sabbatini played a solid round to make their big lead stand up.
Immelman and Sabbatini combined to shoot a 1-over 73 on Sunday and finished at 13-under 275 to give South Africa its second World Cup title in three years and fifth overall. Ernie Els and Retief Goosen teamed up to win in 2001, when the World Cup was played in Japan.
The South Africans, who each earned US$700,000 for the win, started the alternate-stroke round with a seven-stroke lead over the US team of Jim Furyk and Justin Leonard and France's Thomas Levet and Raphael Jacquelin.
"I normally don't watch the leaderboard much but, with seven shots, it just kind of felt funny. I felt I needed to keep an eye on what was going on," said the 23-year-old Immelman, whose previous best payout was US$460,000 for a second-place finish at this year's Volvo PGA Championship.
Sabbatini had said he would "take 18 pars right now and run" following Saturday's round. The South Africans didn't do that, but finished with two birdies and three bogeys, and that was enough.
"I was pretty certain with four holes to go that we had put ourselves in a really good position," Sabbatini said. "If we stuck with what we were doing and didn't make any blatantly stupid errors out there, we were fine."
England's Paul Casey and Justin Rose who made a final-round challenge for the lead. Ten strokes back at the start of the day, the Englishmen shot a 5-under 67 and settled for second at 9-under 279.
"South Africa -- they were 10 ahead of us at the beginning of the day so we couldn't really realistically look at them," Rose said. "We could look at second and if South Africa had a nightmare, we could be there."
Furyk and Leonard were in contention until going bogey-triple bogey at Nos. 12 and 13. The Americans shot a 3-over 75 and finished in a tie for fifth at 4-under 284.
The trouble started when Furyk hit his tee shot into the water on the 440-yard, par-4 13th.
"We played 17 real solid holes without putts going in, and I got loose on one tee shot and we ended up making a triple bogey on that hole," Furyk said. "Other than that, we played well."
Furyk and Leonard tied for fifth Ireland's Padraig Harrington and Paul McGinley.
Levet and Jacquelin finished 8 under, and Germany's Alex Cejka and Marcel Siem, who held the lead after Thursday's best-ball round, finished fourth at 6 under.
The French team managed just two birdies in the final round.
"It's disappointing," Jacquelin said. "This is the second time France has been beaten by England today. We lost the rugby World Cup semifinal to England and now they've taken second place from us in this tournament."
Sunday's round at the World Golf Championships event, which featured two-man teams from 23 nations, was played in mild, sunny conditions with only a light breeze blowing in off the Atlantic at the 7,296-yard Ocean Course, site of the 1991 Ryder Cup.
The New Taipei Kings claimed the inaugural Taiwan Professional Basketball League (TPBL) championship on Sunday, defeating the Kaohsiung FamilyMart Aquas 108-89 in the final. Playing at home, the Kings pulled ahead with Jeremy Lin’s (林書豪) clutch three-pointers, securing their victory over the Aquas in the TPBL final. The Kings came out strong in the first quarter, dominating to build a 35-18 lead. By halftime, they had stretched their advantage to 61-38. In the third quarter, the Aquas narrowed the deficit to 12 points, but Lin stepped up, sinking several tough three- pointers to extend the lead. In the final quarter, the Kings pushed the
Spain are the favorites to win the UEFA Women’s Euro 2025, but star player Aitana Bonmati’s illness ahead of the tournament raises another question mark around a side which, despite their obvious quality, are not unstoppable. Having claimed the last two Ballon d’Or awards, Barcelona midfielder Bonmati is the game’s biggest star at present, so her absence in the final days before the start of Euro 2025 is a major setback. The 27-year-old came down with a fever in training last week, and was subsequently hospitalized and diagnosed with viral meningitis. Bonmati was discharged on Sunday and joined up with
SEMI-FINAL SWEEP: Taiwanese are to take up all four berths in the men’s doubles semi-finals, while three Taiwanese women’s doubles pairings secured spots Taiwan’s badminton ace Chou Tien-chen stayed hot as he secured a semi-final berth in the men’s singles at the US Open at Council Bluffs, Iowa, on Friday. Chou entered the Super 300 tournament as the top seed and breezed past Victor Lai of Canada 21-19, 21-8 in 37 minutes, advancing to the semi-finals for the second straight tournament. Earlier this month, the 35-year-old veteran finished runner-up at the Indonesia Open, becoming the oldest male shuttler to reach a Super 1000-level final. He was set to face Ayush Shetty of India last night after press time for a spot in the final. Meanwhile, 22-year-old Taiwanese
PROMISING TALENT: Real Madrid coach Xabi Alonso was pleased with youngster Gonzalo’s performance and compared him to former ‘Los Blancos’ great Raul Spanish giants Real Madrid on Tuesday beat Juventus 1-0 to set up a FIFA Club World Cup quarter-final clash against Borussia Dortmund, who edged Mexican side Monterrey. Serhou Guirassy struck twice for the German outfit as they scraped past Sergio Ramos’ side 2-1 in a tight last-16 clash in Atlanta, Georgia, and denied the former Real Madrid skipper a matchup against his former team. Youngster Gonzalo Garcia headed home his third goal of the tournament to help Madrid edge Italian side Juventus at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami earlier. It was an impressive display from Xabi Alonso’s Madrid side,
RSS