Refocused Singh proves there's no tournament he can't win  PGATOUR.com Senior Correspondent ORLANDO, Fla. -- If there are certain tournaments a player is just not meant to win -- be it Greg Norman at the Masters, Jack Nicklaus at the Canadian Open, or Tiger Woods at the Nissan Open (so far) -- Vijay Singh hasn't gotten the memo. If there's an alarm clock that goes off when a player turns 40 signaling a diminishing ability to accrue tournament titles, Singh is deaf to it.  Vijay Singh is looking ahead with confidence to more victories. (WireImage)
The feisty Fijian continues to build his case for the World Golf Hall of Fame -- well after he was inducted into it, mind you -- and continues to defy notions of age restrictions or expiration dates. Singh, 44, is a winner for the 31st time in his career and for the 19th time since he hit the big 4-oh, capturing the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard on Sunday at the Bay Hill Club. Or maybe it should be called Bay Hell, as one journalist noted while watching the field get punished for its collective sins of inaccuracy and imprecision and shoot a cumulative 4.513 strokes over par in the final round. Singh's two-stroke victory over Rocco Mediate was hard-earned and slow in arriving. A second consecutive 3-under-par 67 on the Champion Course represented the low score each of the final two rounds as he posted 8-under 272, and helped eradicate 14 years of disappointment dating back to his consecutive second-place finishes in 1993 and '94. Two years ago, an uncharacteristic water ball on the arduous home hole left him with a third runner-up. "I wanted to win this one after so many near misses," said a relieved Singh, who equaled "Lighthorse" Harry Cooper for most PGA TOUR wins by a foreign-born player. "I owe it to this tournament. ... I think that it was my starting point on the U.S. tour, so I always thought that this tournament meant a lot to me." In overtaking Charles Howell III for the FedExCup points lead, Singh became the first two-time winner this year on TOUR. His first victory was equally as sweet and redemptive, claiming the Mercedes-Benz Championship after finishing runner-up at Kapalua Resort in Maui, Hawaii, in 2006 and '04. So maybe there's hope for Woods yet at the Nissan Open, though not if he plays as untidily as he did down the stretch Sunday at a tournament he owned for four straight years. A bogey-double-triple finish at Palmer's Perdition -- the closing three-hole stretch at Bay Hill -- left the No. 1 player in the world with his worst nine-hole score (43) as a professional and dropped him back to 22nd place at 76-283 after he had, at one point, clawed within a stroke of the lead. He was far from the only haunted competitor. The field scoring average the final two days was 72.899 and 74.513, respectively, which just happen to be the two highest of the year thus far. There were 90 scores of bogey or higher on Nos. 16-18 Sunday, and not even Singh, as well as he played, was immune, bogeying two of the final three -- the second week in a row the winner has limped in 2-over par. Still, Singh, in overtaking third-round leader Vaughn Taylor, who ended up third, was one of just four players to break par and one of seven at par or better. This on a day that Ben Curtis, who ended up fourth with 72-276, called, "probably one of the hardest Sundays for a regular TOUR event I've seen in a while." "He made the most of his round," Tom Lehman said of Singh, his playing partner Sunday. "He made a couple of mistakes coming in, but up until the 16th hole he hit a lot of great shots. He took advantage of the good things he did, saved himself when he made a mistake." The PGA TOUR Player of the Year and former No. 1 in the world in 2004, Singh recommitted himself in the off-season after what was, in his estimation, a lackluster '06 campaign that featured just one win. He's already one of the most dedicated workers, but he decided to not only get in better shape, but put his mind through some exercises to channel swing keys that he'd forgotten. "Last year wasn't bad; I had quite a lot of top-10s (13). I thought I had a lot of chances to win last year, which I didn't capitalize on. That was the drawback. "But I refocused," Singh added. "I've gone back to doing what I was practicing ... things that I used to practice and I think that not doing those little points -- firing my hips, using my left hand to pull down -- little things like that, they are simple, but if you don't practice them you're going to lose the feel of the clubhead, and that's what I've been doing." Having knocked off two tournaments that stymied him in the past, bringing to 23 the number of different titles he's won, Singh is looking ahead with confidence to collecting different hardware. "Obviously, I want to win the U.S. Open. I haven't won that, and the British (Open). Those are the things I would like to win, but, obviously, they are the hardest ones to win. Almost two-thirds of Singh's victories have come after he turned 40. You believe him absolutely when he proclaims, "I'm not done yet." Why should anyone disagree? "Obviously, this gives me a lot of confidence," Singh said, looking snappy in the blue blazer draped on him by Arnold Palmer. "It gives me believe that I can still win out here with the best of them, and not only once. I can keep winning. I think that's a belief you want. You know, I always believe in my golf swing and my ability to go out and play well. This just really reinforces that." Copyright 2007 PGATOUR.com. All rights reserved. |
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