Sony Open in Hawaii: Final-Round Notebook

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K. J. Choi of South Korea celebrates with the trophy after winning the Sony Open. (Ferrey/GettyImages)

HONOLULU -- K.J. Choi carded a final-round 71 en route to winning the Sony Open in Hawaii on Sunday, the seventh PGA TOUR title of his career. With his win, Choi picked up 4,500 FedExCup points and moved into first on the 2008 FedExCup points list. With his runner-up finish, Rory Sabbatini collected 2,700 points and moved up to fourth on the list. The FedExCup points leader coming into the week, Daniel Chopra, fell one spot into second place after finishing T32 and collecting 133 points.

• Prior to his closing birdie at the par-5 18th, Choi was on his way to becoming the first PGA TOUR winner to not record a single birdie in the final round since Justin Leonard did the same en route to winning the 2005 Stanford St. Jude Championship.

• Choi's wire-to-wire victory is the first on the PGA TOUR since Steve Flesch at last year's Reno-Tahoe Open. Choi also becomes the third outright wire-to-wire winner in Sony Open history, joining Paul Azinger (2000) and Howard Twitty (1993).

• Choi's win Sunday gives him at least one PGA TOUR title for the fourth consecutive year.

• Rory Sabbatini's runner-up finish came as a bit of a surprise given his record at the Sony Open. The four-time PGA TOUR winner had one top-25 finish in nine straight appearances coming into this week (2006 -- tie for second).

• Sunday's finish marked the 11th runner-up finish of Sabbatini's 10-year PGA TOUR career.

• Jerry Kelly, the 2002 Sony Open champion, finished with a 67 on Sunday and his fifth top-10 at Waialae in 11 appearances. Kelly has bettered par in 22 of his last 25 rounds at the Sony Open.

• Steve Stricker's tie-for-fourth finish was his fourth top-five finish in his last six starts on the PGA TOUR (dating back to his win at The Barclays). During that span, Stricker has gone from 10th in the Official World Golf Rankings to third. After recording only three top-10 finishes from the start of 2002 to the end of 2005, Stricker has now notched 18 top-10s since the start of the 2006 season.

• George McNeill carded the round of the day with a 4-under 66 in strong winds. The low round moved the 2007 Frys.com Open champion from tied for 52nd to tied for 17th.

• McNeill and Jerry Kelly were the only the only players to record bogey-free rounds on Sunday.

• In only his second career PGA TOUR start, former Walker Cup player Dustin Johnson notched his first top-10 with a tie-for-10th effort this week.

Three of the four Monday qualifiers made the cut this week at the Sony Open:

Tournament statistical leaders:

Scoring Averages:

• The most difficult hole at Waialae Country Club this week was the par-4 No. 13, which played to an average of 4.286.

• Sunday's final-round scoring average of 72.162 is the highest single-round average at Waialae Country Club since 1997, when the course played to an average of 73.449 in the final round.

• At the end of a windy day in Honolulu, only eight players managed to break par in the final round of the Sony Open: George McNeill, Chad Collins, Jerry Kelly, Steve Lowery, Jason Allred, James Driscoll, Rory Sabbatini, and Jim Furyk.