Golf across the globe: Stenson fights hard

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While the LPGA competed in Hawaii again, and the PGA Tour of Australasia teamed up with the Nationwide Tour for the second-straight event, all eyes were on Arizona last week for the World Golf Championships -- Accenture Match Play Championship.

Stewart Cink concedes the final match to Tiger Woods after 29 holes. (Halleran/Getty Images)

Schedules

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LAST WEEK

Event: World Golf Championships -- Accenture Match Play Championship
Co-sanctioned by: European Tour, Asian Tour, PGA Tour of Australasia and the PGA TOUR
• Receiving 4,725 FedExCup points and $1,350,000 in winnings, Tiger Woods defeated Stewart Cink, claiming the top spot in FedExCup standings, his third-consecutive World Golf Championships event, his fourth-consecutive PGA TOUR title and his sixth-consecutive worldwide win. Whew -- what a mouthful. Despite a first-round battle with the lowest-ranked player in the field -- J.B. Holmes -- that almost led to Tiger going home after just one match, the golf anomaly did it again. Sixty-three wins for Tiger Woods and one more rung up the all-time ladder as he eclipsed Arnold Palmer's record.
• The Sunday-red-shirted No. 1 seed didn't make all the noise in Arizona last week, though. Defending champion Henrik Stenson wanted to keep his crown dearly, evident in his long matches against Robert Allenby (18 holes), Trevor Immelman (25 holes), Jonathan Byrd (18 holes), Woody Austin (18 holes) and finally Tiger Woods (18 holes). Stenson went on to win the consolation match against Justin Leonard for third place.
• Other notes from the weekend: J.B. Holmes poured his heart, soul and then some into his first-round match with Tiger Woods where he stayed up on the world's No. 1 through 15 holes until, in true Tiger fashion, Woods showed Holmes how it's done. Australia's No. 15 seed, Rod Pampling, knocked off No. 2 Justin Rose and then No. 10 Nick O'Hern before losing to Fiji's Vijay Singh. No. 16 Jonathan Byrd took down the Big Easy 6 and 5, while No. 11 Boo Weekley knocked off young upstart Martin Kaymer (No. 6) and fiery Sergio Garcia (No. 3) before falling to Woody Austin.

Event: Telkom PGA Championship
Sanctioned by: Sunshine Tour
• What Sweden's Henrik Stenson failed to do this week (despite a more-than-solid effort), South Africa's Louis Oosthuizen achieved with mammoth proportions. The Telkom PGA Championship's defending champ not only maintained his title at the Country Club Johannesburg, he made darn sure no one else had a chance. "King Louis" cruised to a 14-shot -- that's right, 14-shot -- victory Sunday to finish at a staggering 28-under par.
• The 25-year-old Oosthuizen took home just over $50,000 in winnings and his stunning margin of victory will take a bejeweled seat in Sunshine Tour history as the largest since the tour's inception in 1967.
• Other notable finishes: Vodacom Championship runner up Adilson Da Silva tied for sixth place 18-shots back and Marc Cayeux tied for 10th place at 7-under par.

Event: Moonah Classic
Co-sanctioned by: PGA Tour of Australasia and the Nationwide Tour
• Australia continued its tradition of keeping the event it shares with the Nationwide Tour to itself despite the fact that the Moonah Classic was a new event. Homegrown winner Ewan Porter was the champ in Fingal, Victoria this past weekend after a final-round 66 propelled him to a seven-stroke victory over Americans D.J. Brigman and Tee McCabe. The 25-year-old Aussie plans to use this victory as a springboard to return to success on the Nationwide Tour after a troublesome season in 2005.
• Other notable finishes at the Moonah Classic include Porter's fellow Australian and recent Mexico Open winner Jarrod Lyle in a tie for fifth, American D.A. points tied for seventh and Argentina's Miguel Angel Carballo tied for 15th.

Event: Fields Open in Hawaii
Sanctioned by: LPGA
• Though Paula Creamer's tie for 12th might not have been enough at the SBS Open to successfully defend her title, she certainly took care of business last week. The 21-year-old California native grabbed the win instead at the Fields Open in Hawaii.
• Not a cruise to victory, Creamer had to overtake 36-hole leader Jeong Jang in order to win, and her final-round 66 was exactly what the situation called for. Defeating Jang by just one stroke, Creamer earned $195,000 in first-place prize money.
• Also noteworthy in the field this week: SBS Open winner Annika Sorenstam in fourth place and Suzann Pettersen, Cristie Kerr and Morgan Pressel all tied for 15th.

THIS WEEK

Vijay Singh lost in the quarterfinals of Accenture to Justin Leonard after 18 holes. (Linquist/Getty Images)

Event: Johnnie Walker Classic
Co-sanctioned by: European Tour, Asian Tour and PGA Tour of Australasia
• Fiji's Vijay Singh and Scotland's Colin Montgomerie both fared pretty well at last week's World Golf Championships -- Accenture Match Play Championship with the former reaching the fourth round and the latter reaching the third, and the two will head to India this week as big names in the Johnnie Walker Classic.
• Held at DLF Golf and Country Club in New Delhi, began in 1992 and was won by golf greats such as Nick Faldo, Greg Norman, Tiger Woods and Ernie Els (those last two have both won it twice).
• Besides Singh and Montgomerie, look out for PGA TOUR and European Tour straddler Ian Poulter, Indian Masters winner S.S.P. Chowrasia, New Zealand's David Smail (runner up in the HSBC New Zealand PGA Championship) and defending champion Anton Haig of South Africa.

Event: Mount Edgecombe Trophy
Sanctioned by: Sunshine Tour
• Defending champion Steve van Vuuren will compete this week at the Mount Edgecombe Golf Club. Will he follow in Oostuizen's footsteps and blow away the rest of the field in order to keep his title?
• Also in the field of note are James Kamte and Tjaart Van Der Walt. Many of the Sunshine Tour's best players withdrew from this event in order to play in the Johnnie Walker Classic, including Anton Haig and James Kingston.

Event: HSBC Women's Champions
Sanctioned by: LPGA
• After two weeks in Hawaii, the LPGA heads west ... or is it east? ... to Singapore for the inaugural event where they will compete for a $2 million purse.
• Contested at the par-72 Tanah Merah Country Club, the HSBC Women's Champions will have the following notable names in the field: Creamer, Natalie Gulbis, Laura Diaz, Jang, Lorena Ochoa, Se Ri Pak, Stacy Prammanasudh and Annika Sorenstam -- who, as a side note, is well on her way to reaching her goal for 2008: Getting back to No. 1.

NEXT WEEK
• The European Tour and the Asian Tour find themselves together again at the Maybank Malaysian Open at Kota Permai Golf Club in Kuala Lumpur.
• The Sunshine Tour will take some time off until March 28 when it will head to Zambia for the Chinama Hills 2008 Zambia Open.
• Also taking some time off, the PGA Tour of Australasia will not hit the fairways until March 20 when they join the rest of the world's best in the World Golf Championships -- CA Championship in Miami.
• The LPGA will take a break, as well, if only for a week and then prepare for the Mastercard Classic honoring Alejo Peralta in Mexico on March 14.

Not playing this week:
• The Japan Tour is still on break from competition until Mid April.