Tiger Conquers Sawgrass, Wins Players Championship

Final Round 67 Leaves Woods One Shot Better Than Singh

Josh Sekine, Staff Writer
March 27, 2001, 8:35 a.m. EST

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- Tiger Woods has won the four Grand Slam golf tournaments, and now he has won what many of the players consider the fifth major.

Woods rallied from two-shots back on the final day of The Players Championship to shoot a 5-under 67 and win the tournament by one stroke over Vijay Singh. He started Sunday with a birdie on the first hole and eagle on the second, tying two-day leader Jerry Kelly. When the tournament was called due to darkness late Sunday night, Woods had a one-stroke lead over Singh and Kelly.

Monday morning, Woods exploded right from the beginning. He birdied the par-4 10th, the par-4 12th and the par-5 16th to drop to 15-under and command a 3-shot lead over Singh and Kelly. Singh's birdie miss at 18, that would have drop him to 14-under, was costly as Woods bogied 18 and won the tournament at 14-under.

"I thought going into the final round that 15-under would be good enough to win. I was 15-under going onto 18," Woods said jokingly as he accepted the championship trophy.

Woods said that winning the tournament broke his winning "slump" that he was going through and was a good primer for the upcoming Masters tournament.

"I feel pretty good. My practice sessions this week have been pretty good. My short game, I feel as if I'm pretty happy with it. The shots I was working on this week before Augusta, I felt that I'm very pleased on some of the shots, and I will continue to probably work on the most important thing at Augusta, and that's control of your trajectory, and hopefully that will get a little bit better," Woods said.

Friday and Saturday's leader, Kelly, couldn't get his game together for the final round. He began the final round with a birdie on the second hole, then bogied the fourth and would not birdie another hole until the 15th, when Woods already had a firm grasp on the lead at 15-under.

"I was, what, two shots back over the last three. When he went 3-up, okay, fine. And after I watched him hit that shot, 'game on' again. (If) I make birdie, he makes bogey -- I'm one shot back. So until I got to 18 and he was still 3-up, then I put it in the rough: Game over," Kelly said.

Kelly's fourth-place finish earned him $288,000 for his largest career paycheck on the PGA Tour.

Singh made a run to the top of the leaderboard midway through Monday's round. He birdied the 13th hole to drop to 13-under and pull within one stroke of Woods before heading to disaster on the par-4 14th.

Singh triple-bogied the 14th after his tee shot landed in the water. He recovered to get the ball on the green, then two-putted and took a seven on the hole.

"You know, I was feeling very comfortable on the tee and just wanted to move it left-to-right, and came right over it and crossed it. It's caused by a little too quick of a swing. You know, too aggressive and too anxious, I guess," Singh said.

Singh recovered by eagling the par-5 16th, then made an incredible putt to birdie No. 17. His birdie putt on No. 18 to drop to 14-under, which would have put him into a tie and force a playoff with Woods, missed the cup to the right.

Woods' win earns him $1.08 million, which puts him back atop the PGA Tour's money list with winnings of more than $2.25 million this year.

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