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PALM HARBOR, Florida: Sean O’Hair capitalized on Stewart Cink’s
collapse Sunday to win the $5.3 million PODS Championship by two
strokes.
O’Hair fired a final-round 69 for a four-round
total of 280, two strokes in front of a group of players that
included Cink, Australian John Senden and Japan’s Ryuji Imada.
O’Hair claimed his second US Tour title to go
with his win at the John Deere Classic in July of 2005.
“This one is really, really special,” said
O’Hair, who booked a place in The Masters with the win. “You win
and you expect everything to fall into place. But it doesn’t work
that way. These guys are just so good.”
Cink, playing this week for the first time since
he was routed by Tiger Woods in the final of the World Golf
Championships Accenture Match Play Championship last month, carded
a 74 for 282.
He was one of half a dozen players sharing
second, along with Senden (67), Imada (68), George O’Neill (69),
Troy Matteson (69) and Billy Mayfair (72).
O’Hair, 25, started the final round three
shots off the lead, and his chances appeared to dim when third-round
leader Cink birdied his first two holes.
But Cink followed with a bogey at the third, and
added three more bogeys before a killer double-bogey at the 16th
ended his chances.
O’Hair wrested the lead from Cink when he made
a 32-foot putt for birdie on the par-three 16th hole.
Cink bogeyed 14 when his drive landed near a
tree. The two-shot swing gave O’Hair a two-stroke cushion,
allowing him to bogey 18 without damage.
The victory marked a change of fortune for
O’Hair this season, when his best finish in five previous starts
was a tie for 49th. He had missed the cut in his last two starts.
Rain on the first two days threw the tournament
off schedule, and six golfers had to complete the third round on
Sunday morning.
Cink held a two-shot lead over Australian Geoff
Ogilvy, Brandt Snedeker and Mayfair going into the final round.
-- AFP
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