Tue, Feb 21, 2006 page18

• Sabbatini wins Nissan with unusual golf style

  • NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
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  Rory Sabbatini has worn camouflage pants at swank country clubs and chastised a fellow PGA Tour golfer during a tournament for being a slow poke. He smacks chewing gum between shots and chose Sunday to break out a silver belt buckle with an "S" bracketed in a Superman logo.

  None of these qualities, striking as they may be, speak to the long drives and dazzling iron shots he has spun so far in 2006, which helped him overcome a few hecklers on the way to winning the Nissan Open at Riviera Country Club on Sunday.

  When Sabbatini two-putted from 45 feet on the final green, his one-over-par 72 and 13-under-par 271 were enough for a one-stroke victory over Adam Scott, who shot 64 in defense of his rain-shortened, unofficial victory here last year. Craig Barlow carded a 70 to finish two strokes behind Sabbatini, while Fred Couples, the fan favorite, imploded with three bogeys in his final four holes to shoot 71 and finish three shots back.

  

  Rory Sabbatini tees off on the 12th hole on his way to a one shot victory in the Nissan Open at the Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California, on Sunday.

  PHOTO: AFP

  "I don't know if it's a chip on my shoulder or a monkey on my back, but I shed it today," Sabbatini, 29, said in winning US$918,000 and his third career Tour event.

  With the help of two second-place finishes this season, Sabbatini leapt atop the money list with US$2,184,294 and perhaps earned a respite from the scrutiny caused by his extroverted personality.

  Fans have teased him about his choice in clothing, including the camouflage pants he occasionally wears on Thursday during a tournament's first round. (He says he does so to promote awareness for families who have lost US soldiers to war.)

  On Sunday, a number of spectators in the pro-Couples gallery threw verbal jabs. Sabbatini had come to work in red, beige and purple tartan pants, a black shirt and that belt buckle.

  "I was in the mall this week, it was a belt that happened to be with a Superman logo with my initial on it, so I picked it up," said Sabbatini, who was born in Durban, South Africa, and resides in Southlake, Texas.

  Of the occasional jeers, he said: "There were a lot of snide remarks out there. Freddy is a great guy, one of the nicest guys in the game of golf, one of my idols. But give other guys a chance. Don't be rude."

  Some of the enmity toward Sabbatini could stem from him leaving his playing partner Ben Crane standing in the fairway at last year's Booz Allen Classic because he was tired of waiting on Crane's long preshot routine.

  "There are a few people who have taken potshots at me," Sabbatini said. "I don't want to give them any more ammunition."

  Sabbatini said he had since learned how to ignore slow golfers by reading a yardage book and paying attention to his own play.

  On Saturday night, he held a four-shot lead and considered switching his irons out of his bag -- he said he did not like how he was hitting them -- until his wife, Amy, told him to stick with the old ones.

  "Got a stern talking to," Sabbatini said.

  Couples cut Sabbatini's four-shot lead in half as Sabbatini missed a pair of 4-foot par putts on the front nine, and he tied Sabbatini at 13 under when Sabbatini missed another 4-footer for par on No. 12.

  But Couples lost his groove just as Sabbatini found his. On the 166-yard, par-3 16th hole, Couples made bogey by bouncing his tee shot off a tree into a bunker. Sabbatini laced a 7-iron to five feet and took an aggressive line with his putter.

  "It wasn't paying off hitting putts soft, so I decided to be more aggressive," Sabbatini said. He knocked the putt into the center of the cup for birdie, the margin he needed to hold off a surging Scott.

  "Rory has been on the leader board every week I've looked this year," Scott said. "When you've got that confidence, you have to run with it."

  Sabbatini has plenty. At his champion's news conference, he said he hoped to finish the season atop the money list.
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