Wachovia Championship: Final-Round Notebook  PGA TOUR Staff CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Tiger Woods survived a back nine 38 on Sunday and managed to post a final round 70 on his way to claiming his first Wachovia Championship title with rounds of 70-68-68-69--275. Woods' total of 13-under par 275 is a Wachovia Championship record.  Tiger Woods happily donned his Carolina blue jacket after winning the Wachovia Championship. (Richard Schultz/WireImage)
• Woods earns 4,500 FedExCup points for his win this week, vaulting him to first on the inaugural FedExCup points list with 16,598 points. Vijay Singh moves back to second on the list with 13,582 points. • This is the 57th career PGA TOUR win for Woods and his first professional title in the state of North Carolina. Woods finished runner-up to Michael Campbell in the 2005 U.S. Open at Pinehurst #2. • Tiger Woods' victory Sunday has him in top form heading into next week's PLAYERS Championship. In 2001, he won the Bay Hill Invitational and went on to claim his first and only PLAYERS title the next week. • While Woods is known as the PGA TOUR's top front-runner, his legend is growing as a master of coming from behind to win on Sunday. Woods had eight come-from-behind victories in his first nine years on TOUR (1996-2004), while Sunday's win marks his eighth in his last 2+ years (2005-2007). • Steve Stricker's attempt to claim his fourth PGA TOUR title fell short at the par-4 18th hole this week. Stricker lost to Woods by two shots and played the closing hole in 4-over par for the tournament. • Stricker's runner-up check for $680,400 is the second-largest of his career and his largest since capturing the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship title in 2001 ($1,000,000). • Arron Oberholser is the all-time leading money winner at the Wachovia Championship for players who have not won the event. He has amassed $814,317 with his best finish being runner-up after losing to Joey Sindelar in a playoff in 2004. • Woods' double bogey on the par-3 13th was his first on TOUR since the final round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard, when he made a 5 at the par-3 17th. • Vijay Singh remains the all-time leading money winner in Wachovia Championship history with $1,847,853. His T7 finish is his fourth top-10 at the Wachovia Championship, which is also a tournament best. • The winners of the Wachovia Championship are forced to play great golf over the course's fearsome final two holes. How have champions played holes 17 and 18? Woods recorded four bogeys and four pars this year. Jim Furyk had two birdies, two bogeys, and four pars in 2006. Vijay Singh parred the holes in all four rounds in 2005, while Joey Sindelar had a birdie at the 17th on Sunday to go along with seven pars in 2004. David Toms made nothing but pars in 2003 until a quadruple-bogey eight at the par-4 18th on Sunday allowed him to win by two over Singh, Brent Geiberger, and Robert Gamez. • Woods became the fourth major championship winner to add the Wachovia Championship to his resume. Woods joins Jim Furyk (U.S. Open), Vijay Singh (Masters, PGA Championship), and David Toms (PGA Championship) as Wachovia Championship winners who have also won major championships. • The Quail Hollow Club course has the feel of a major championship venue, and past winners have gone on to prove that is an accurate assessment. Past winners who have recorded top-10s at the three remaining majors are Jim Furyk (2006: T2-U.S. Open, 4-British Open), Vijay Singh (2005: T6-U.S. Open, T5-British Open, T10-PGA Championship), David Toms (2003: T5-U.S. Open). • Stewart Cink's T5 finish marks his first top-10 finish in a PGA TOUR stroke play event in the 2007 season. Cink managed a T9 (3rd Round-Match Play) finish at the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship earlier this year. • PGA TOUR rookie Anthony Kim (T5) is positioning himself nicely for Rookie-of-the-Year honors with his fourth top-10 finish of the season as well as his eighth straight made cut. • There were no bogey-free rounds on Sunday. The low round of the day was 69 by five players: Woods, Stricker, Bernhard Langer, Padraig Harrington, and Charles Howell III. • Jerry Kelly's streak of four straight top-10 finishes came to a halt on Sunday with a final round 77, which left him T43 for the week. Kelly entered the final round T14. • The 591-yard par-5 10th failed to yield a single eagle on Sunday, after allowing at least one in each of the first three rounds. Billy Mayfair and Vijay Singh led the field in total eagles this week with two each. • Woods is the third winner of the Wachovia Championship to come from behind on Sunday and claim the title. Joey Sindelar was victorious in 2004 after trailing third round leader Arron Oberholser, while Vijay Singh managed to overtake third round leader Sergio Garcia en route to his title in 2005. • "The Green Mile," Quail Hollow's vaunted three finishing holes, ranked as the three hardest holes on the golf course on Sunday. The three holes combined for a miniscule 13 total birdies on Sunday. The 478-yard par-4 18th played as the most difficult with a stroke average of 4.560. • While the Quail Hollow Club plays to a lengthy 7,442 yards, it did not favor the long hitter this week. Not a single player in the top-10 in Driving Distance this week managed to finish in the top-10 on the leaderboard. • The Quail Hollow Club played to a cumulative average of 73.280, making it the fifth most difficult course on the PGA TOUR thus far in 2007. • Tiger Woods earns his 57th career PGA TOUR victory at the age of 31 years, four months and six days in his 215th (206th professional) career start on TOUR. For 2007, this is his third PGA TOUR victory in six starts. • Woods moves to No. 3 on the all-time Wachovia Championship money list with $1,586,000. He earned $324,800 in 2004 (T3) and $127,200 in 2005 (T11). • Woods becomes the first three-time winner of the season and has collected at least three wins in a season for the ninth time in his 12-year PGA TOUR career. He improves his season earnings to $4,142,391, the 10th time he has exceeded the $4 million mark, and has surpassed the $69 million mark in career PGA TOUR Official Money with $69,854,715. • Woods has won his 24th different tournament on the PGA TOUR. There are only four events on the PGA TOUR that he has played multiple times but has never won. And he won for the first time in the state of North Carolina, his 13th different state with a win. • Woods now has five top-10 finishes for the season. He has 137 career top-10s in 206 professional starts and has finished in the top-25 181 times. • This is the 16th time Woods has won an event without holding the 54-hole lead, including two of his three victories in 2007. He came from two strokes back at the Buick Invitational. His 57 career PGA TOUR victories are the fifth most in TOUR history. Arnold Palmer stands in fourth with 62 victories. Copyright 2007 PGATOUR.com. All rights reserved. |
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