Golf Capsules: Woods wins his tournament with a late birdie

BETHESDA, Md. - Even after 68 victories, Tiger Woods never had a finish quite like Sunday at the AT&T National.

It had nothing to do with the golf, which was all too familiar.

Challenged by Hunter Mahan's record-tying 62 at Congressional, Woods plotted his way along the back nine and delivered the decisive birdie with a 20-foot putt on the 16th green, closing with a 3-under 67 for a one-shot victory.

The trophy presentation was unlike any other.

"I've always wanted to do this, so bear with me," Woods said, cradling the silver trophy in the shape of the Capitol. Then, the tournament host interviewed the tournament champion.

In this case, it was the same guy.

"So Tiger, how did you play today?" Woods said in a mock Q&A as thousands of fans broke into laughter.

This is what Woods meant earlier in the week by wanting to be a "greedy host" at Congressional.

It was his tournament, and his show.

With three birdies in a five-hole stretch, Woods surged past Anthony Kim in a high-charged final pairing. Then came a 62 from Mahan, tying the course record at Congressional that Kim had set Thursday. With some 40,000 fans waiting to see how the final hour would unfold, Woods rolled in a 20-foot birdie and walked stoically to the cup, nodding his head.

He closed with routine pars to finish at 13-under 267 for his third victory this year, along with some uncanny coincidences.

-Woods won in his second try at the tournament he hosts, just as Jack Nicklaus won his Memorial in the second year.

-He now has won all three PGA Tour events hosted by players in one year. Woods won the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March with a birdie on the final hole, getting another hearty handshake from the King. And he won the Memorial with a final-round 65, with Nicklaus standing behind the green to congratulate him.

"It was great shaking my hand today," Woods said.

One other coincidence: All three of his victories came in his final start before a major. Woods finished four shots behind in both the Masters and the U.S. Open at Bethpage Black two weeks ago. The next stop is the British Open in two weeks at Turnberry, on a links course Woods has never seen.

This victory was meaningful because it was his own, started three years ago. Inside the ropes, however, it felt like any other tournament that Woods was trying to win.

"You go out there with the same intensity to win," he said.

The 68th victory of his PGA Tour career moved him to the top of the money list and FedEx Cup standings for the first time this year.

Mahan made six birdies on the back nine for a 62, the final birdie giving him a share of the lead. He had to wait more than an hour to see if it would hold, going into the family dining area to watch alongside Woods' wife, Elin, and 2-year-old daughter Sam.

Woods missed a 10-foot putt on the 14th and Mahan said he jokingly cheered in a light moment.

But he knew better.

"I mean, he's pretty good," Mahan said. "He knows what he's doing. He knows how to play this game better than anybody."

Kim simply couldn't keep up.

It was the ideal final pairing at Congressional - the world's No. 1 player and tournament host tied with Kim, a confident 24-year-old who was the defending champion. Kim lost four shots in four holes on the front nine, and didn't make a birdie on the back nine.

He shot a 71 to finish alone in third, four shots behind.

"I had a lot of fun," Kim said. "I know I'll be knocking on the door again. It's only a matter of time. I learned if you have a birdie putt, you better make it."

Bryce Molder closed with a 68 to finish alone in fourth, which came with a $288,000 check that was worth more than money alone. It put him atop a special money list that ended Sunday, earning a trip to the British Open. The other spot from the money list went to Paul Goydos.

Brandt Snedeker, finally healthy after a rib injury, had a 68-67 weekend and tied for fifth with U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover. Snedeker also earned a spot at Turnberry as the leading player among the top five not already eligible for the British Open.

Mahan had to settle for his third straight top 10, although he put on quite a show, even if hardly anyone noticed.

Most of the 40,000 fans at Congressional scrambled for a sight of the present and the future - Woods and Kim - until Mahan started dropping in putts from everywhere on the back nine.

"I think everybody was watching AK and Tiger and expecting kind of a battle there, and I knew I just had to go low today," Mahan said. "I figured great players up on the leaderboard like that, I figured they'd make it to at least 13 or 14 under."

Playing with Woods for the first time - in the final pairing at Woods' own tournament, no less - Kim walked with a swagger and a smile to the first tee, dressed in white pants and a royal blue shirt. He then smoked his driver some 25 yards past Woods, nearly holed out his wedge and tapped in for birdie for a quick advantage.

A four-hole stretch changed everything.

Kim three-putted the fifth for bogey, and Woods took the lead with an 8-iron over the water to 15 feet for birdie. Their day was summed up at the par-3 seventh, when both hit tee shots 6 feet away.

Kim missed, Woods made.

Kim then three-putted from 20 feet on the eighth, missing a 3-foot par putt.

The threat came from Mahan, an explosive player like Kim, minus the hip-hop.

He teed off more than an hour before Woods, then poured it on along the back nine with six birdies, including a 15-foot putt on the final hole to tie the course record.

Mahan was on his way to the range when they heard a roar a half-mile away and his caddie checked his phone to see that Woods had made birdie. Mahan finished hitting balls and was headed to the putting green when a young girl approached him for an autograph.

He might not have noticed what was written on the back of her T-shirt: "Tiger's Back."

British Open-bound: Molder, Goydos and Snedeker 

WASHINGTON - Bryce Molder, Paul Goydos and Brandt Snedeker earned spots in the British Open on Sunday in the AT&T National.

Molder and Goydos earned spots through a special money list that covers six tournaments, while Snedeker got there because he was the leading player among the top five at Congressional who hadn't already qualified.

"Floored and excited," said Snedeker, whose closing round of 67 was just enough to earn him a tie for fifth at 7-under 273.

Snedeker wasn't even aware that he had qualified when he left the course at Congressional Country Club. He missed eight weeks earlier this year with a rib injury and had been planning to play the U.S. Bank Championship in Milwaukee during the week of the British, which takes place at Turnberry in Scotland in two weeks.

"My golf game was in bad shape before I got hurt," Snedeker said. "The first time I felt healthy, I didn't know what to think about coming back out. People gave me the sympathy vote last week when I made the cut - first cut I'd made in a while, and it ticked me off. I don't want sympathy. This week, I felt like I proved to everyone and myself that I can get back to where I was."

Molder will be playing the British for the first time, while Goydos and Snedeker both missed the cut last year at Royal Birkdale.

"I know I was fairly close," said Molder, who closed with a 68 for an 8-under 272 total to finish fourth. "I knew it was a lot of factors going on; it wasn't just me playing well, it was other people if they played well. ... It sounds like I'm in now, and I'm really excited."

CANCEL THAT FLIGHT

Danny Lee had planned to hustle to the airport as soon as his final round was finished. The U.S. Amateur champion had booked a Sunday night flight to Europe so that he could play in the Scottish Open.

Instead, the U.S. Amateur champion played so well that his travel itinerary changed. His final round of 70 gave him a top 10 finish at the AT&T National - tied for seventh with a 6-under 274 total - earning him an automatic spot in the John Deere Classic in Illinois without using up one of his remaining PGA Tour exemptions.

"I was in a hurry to catch a flight to Scotland, and now I've got to cancel my flight," he said. "Those things happen. I can play another PGA event."

Lee earned $180,750 this weekend, more than doubling his total earnings in his seven events since turning pro in late April. His $350,054 is about two-thirds of the way to the $537,958 he needs to put him on the PGA Tour for the rest of the year.

"I'm very pumped up and I've been playing great this week," Lee said. "I don't really worry about the money at the moment, I'm just pumped up because I can play another PGA event with all those greatest players in the world."

The last-minute change won't keep Lee off the trans-Atlantic flights for long. The 19-year-old from New Zealand said he still wants to play his minimum number of 12 tournaments this year to retain his membership in the PGA European Tour.

ALLEN WRENCHES

So much for breaking that 0-for-336 slump. Michael Allen had a tough final round of 74 to tie for 11th, making him winless in 337 tries on the PGA Tour.

The 50-year-old Allen started the day one shot off the lead, but he had trouble finding the fairway and bogeyed four of the first eight holes. After No. 8, he walked to the gallery and kissed one of his daughters, drawing a sympathetic "Ahhhhhh!" from the fans.

Allen's next hole turned out to be the only one in which he broke par - and he did it with the shot of the day. He holed a 9-iron from 143 yards for an eagle on the par-5 No. 9, then celebrated by taking off his visor and raising his hands as if to signal "touchdown!"

Otherwise, Allen and partner Cameron Beckman spent the day playing in front of a distracted crowd. They were the next-to-last pairing in front of Tiger Woods and Anthony Kim, so the fans often had their heads turned in the wrong direction. When Beckman should have been expecting quiet as he lined up to putt at the seventh hole, the gallery roared for Woods' birdie putt on the nearby sixth.

-- Joseph White

Yi beats Pressel in playoff

SYLVANIA, Ohio - The gallery was going wild. There was no question what had happened.

Eunjung Yi watched from the 17th tee and knew that Morgan Pressel, playing just ahead of her, had holed a lob wedge from 70 yards for eagle that had erased what had only a few holes earlier had been a six-shot lead.

Rather than let her mind wander or allow herself to be distracted by all of the people cheering for Pressel, Yi shut everything out.

"I didn't think about her," she said. "I thought about my golf."

Yi recovered to roll in a 10-foot birdie putt on the first playoff hole to beat Pressel and capture her first LPGA Tour title Sunday in what might be the final Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic.

Pressel, a runner-up for the second time in three years at the Farr, tipped her hat to the winner.

"She won the tournament," Pressel said. "She made a birdie on the playoff hole. I had my opportunities."

The 21-year-old Yi, the 2005 U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links winner, began the day with a four-shot lead. She birdied two of the first three holes to go up six shots. Yet she remained oblivious; she never looked at a leaderboard and didn't ask her caddie about her status.

"I was just focusing on my golf," she said. "I didn't see the scoreboards at all. I just hit the driver, the second shots - I was very centered."

Pressel, chasing her third career victory, pulled even by holing that wedge shot on the par-5 17th hole.

Yi, from South Korea, finished at 18-under 266 to earn the $210,000 first prize - more than she had earned in her previous 23 LPGA Tour starts combined. She had missed the cut in four of her seven starts this year and her biggest previous check was just over $11,000 for a 26th-place tie at the Corona Championship.

Yi closed with an even-par 71 and Pressel had a 67. Michelle Wie had a career-best 64 to tie for third at 16 under, but lost a chance to put extra pressure on the leaders when she misfired while going for the par-5 18th in two and had to settle for a par.

On the playoff hole, the 18th, both Yi and Pressel were in the fairway inside 100 yards away in two. Pressel's approach came up short to the back left pin location, ending up on the first cut of rough about 20 feet from the hole. Yi hit a lower, harder shot that stopped 10 feet away.

Pressel's birdie putt held the line and almost fell as it scooted past on the left edge. She then tapped in for par.

After looking over her putt, Yi hit it firmly and - before the ball even settled into the cup - she raised both arms in victory.

"When I hit it, I thought it was going in," she said.

The instant Yi left the green she picked up her cell phone and called her father back in Temecula, Calif., who was working at his restaurant, the Minong Korean Barbecue. When she first soared to the lead in the third round, she vowed that if she won the Farr then her father would serve free meals to everyone who came in.

Her father, Kuyng Su, was watching the tournament on TV. She let him know that he needed to be ready for a lot of giveaways.

"Everything, for whoever comes - all free," she said with a laugh.

Pressel trailed by four shots as she went to the 16th tee. But a Yi bogey and a Pressel birdie set the stage for the shot of the day.

At the 17th, Pressel was upset by her drive and stopped just short of slamming her driver into the turf. But she was able to chase a 3 wood into the fairway. From there, with 70 yards to the hole, she pulled out a lob wedge on the 513-yard, par-5 hole. The instant she made contact, her caddie, Barry "Rock" Cesarz, shouted, "Go! Go!" The ball, however, didn't need any help.

It cleared the bunker in the way of the back left pin placement, bounced twice and then rolled into the cup for the eagle that tied her for the lead. Pressel flashed a wide smile, turned to Cesarz and traded a high-five with him.

"Sometimes you get a little lucky," she said.

As her score was posted on the large magnetic sign near the 18th green, the crowd went crazy.

Both then parred out to set up the drama that unfolded on the extra hole.

Yi's playing partner, Song-Hee Kim, had a 25-foot birdie putt at the final hole that would have also put her in the playoff, but she missed it and then missed the comeback putt. Kim, who shot a 69, ended up tied for third with Wie and Seon Hwa Lee (67).

Wie made a back-nine rush - birdieing holes 14, 15, 16 and 17 - in her 64. But she needed to win the Farr to get into next week's U.S. Women's Open at Saucon Valley in Bethlehem, Pa.

"I feel like I'm on the brink of playing extremely well but I still have a lot yet to learn," she said. "I have a lot to improve. I want to just keep the same feeling as the last 10 holes that I played and keep moving forward from there."

The tournament's contract with its title sponsor, the LPGA Tour and Highland Meadows Golf Club expired after the final round.

"I certainly hope we can come back," said Pressel, who frequently visited her grandparents in nearby Detroit when she was young. "It would be disappointing to not come back, with my family here and so close to where I spent so much time as a kid."

-- Rusty Miller

Kaymer tops Westwood in playoff to win French Open 

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France - Martin Kaymer of Germany won the French Open on Sunday, beating Lee Westwood of England in the first hole of a playoff.

The 2007 Rookie of the Year on the European Tour kept his composure in a dramatic finish on Sunday to clinch his third title after having missed chances on the last few holes.

"On the last few holes, I was not as calm as I was at the beginning of the round," Kaymer said. "But then in the playoff, I felt really relaxed and pretty laid back. That was probably the key that I could make a good stroke on the last putt."

Kaymer sank a putt from 18 feet on No. 18 at Le Golf National's Albatross Course to edge Ryder Cup star Westwood, who sent his approach shot into the water.

"When I hit it, I thought 'Oh it's going to be long,'" Kaymer said of his putt. "I kind of pulled it a little bit so that it sneaked in from the left side. It was good."

Westwood had the round of the day with seven birdies and a bogey for a 6-under 65 that forced a playoff at 13-under 271.

"Sixty-five on this golf course under pressure is no easy round of golf," Westwood said.

Ian Poulter of England carded a 67 to take third place with a 274 total, one stroke better than Anders Hansen of Denmark, who tied for fourth with Sweden's Peter Hanson.

Poulter came within two strokes of the lead but stalled his momentum with two bogeys in the last four holes.

Kaymer is projected to climb in the European Tour rankings from 23rd to fifth while Westwood will move from 39th to 10th.

Going into the final round in second place, Kaymer converted a 10-foot birdie putt on the sixth to tie overnight leader Rafa Echenique of Argentina at 12-under.

But on the next hole, both missed par putts, letting Westwood share the lead at 11-under as the Englishman hit a birdie from six feet on the ninth.

Westwood struggled with his putting last year but his birdie putts Sunday helped him climb from seventh place after the third round to tie for first.

Kaymer went one stroke up on Echenique on the eighth with an outstanding birdie putt from more than 50 feet before Westwood holed a 20-foot putt on the 11th to stay neck-and-neck with the German.

From then on, it became a nerve-racking contest between Westwood and Kaymer, who both added two more birdies to increase their lead to three strokes at 14-under while Echenique, after his bogey on the seventh, slipped further down the leaderboard with two triple-bogeys on the back nine.

Though Westwood's putting was steady, the Englishman was let down by a tee shot on the 14th that landed in the rough. He failed to get his approach shot on the green and made a bogey on the longest hole of the Albatross course.

But Kaymer couldn't capitalize, hitting his tee shot into the bunker at the 12th and dropping a shot to fall back into a tie for the lead with Westwood at under-13.

The German nearly blew his chances on the 15th, where his tee shot stopped just three feet from the water.

Westwood wound up his last four holes with solid pars and waited inside the clubhouse for Kaymer to finish his round.

Kaymer had another opportunity to clinch the title on the 17th, but missed a birdie putt from seven feet. He then had to hold his nerves and convert a three-foot par putt to force the playoff.

"I was a little up and down today," Kaymer said. "I had a good chance to close it earlier. I had especially a very good chance on 15, 16 and 17 and I couldn't make it. But I finally made a great shot on 18."

-- Trung Latieule