Stenson dominates final round to win

Come today, you might notice a new pre-shot routine on the first tee box at your private club or local muni.

You’ll see someone grab the wrong end of the club, near the face, and take a half-swing, followed by a full swing.

After winning the Players Championship with stunning ease, Henrik Stenson should patent his signature move.

The Swede said the routine allows him to “paint the path of the swing without the resistance of a club head. Then I can get the same feel from turning the club upside down, and it just gets me on plane.” Whatever.

“Hey, if it makes you play like that,” said Stenson’s playing partner, Ben Crane, “I think everyone’s gonna be doing it.”

What Stenson, 33, did Sunday was tap an infusion of talent that once prompted fellow tour player Geoff Ogilvy to remark: “He can win anything he wants.”

He won the Players with a round of 66 that featured 12 pars and six birdies. His 12-under-par total of 276 was good for a four-shot win.

“He played flawlessly,” Crane said. “It was a tough test of golf and he went around like it wasn’t.”

Asked if he felt as if he had played a different golf course than the rest of the field, Stenson replied: “No, it was still Sawgrass, I promise you.”

Try telling that to Alex Cejka and Tiger Woods, who made up Sunday’s final pairing. Their expected duel was reduced to an afterthought by the turn.

“I was thinking that if I could finish in front of Tiger, that might be good enough,” said Ian Poulter, who shot a 70 to finish second. “But I wasn’t expecting someone to go out there and shoot 66.”

Cejka shot 79, seven shots higher than any of his first three rounds. Woods limped home with a 73 to finish eighth, seven shots back.

“You guys need to cut [Woods] some slack at times,” Stenson said. “He can’t win every week.”

Stenson knows that all too well. In 2001 he was anything but the efficient, seemingly machine-like ball-striker he is now.

Playing in the European Open, he walked off K Club in Ireland after nine holes, telling his playing partners that he’d be better off not slowing down the group.

“I was in a bad spell there,” Stenson recalled. “[Golf] can feel like the easiest game on the planet and then it can be the hardest.”

As an example, Stenson was 52nd at the European Tour’s Ballentine’s Championship two weeks ago. Sunday, he rallied from five shots down.

He earned $1.71 million for a victory that moves him to No. 5 in the world ranking.

John Mallinger (70) and Kevin Na (70) tied for third, five shots back.

Stenson turned his three-wood into a lethal weapon. He used it off 13 tees, hitting 12 fairways and knocking the ball as far as 302 yards. Twice.

Asked for specifics about the club, including how long he hits it, Stenson said: “It’s 13 degrees and I hit it far.” He smashed it 276 yards into the 18th fairway, leading to a long conversation in Swedish with caddie Fanny Sunesson.

That’s when NBC’s Johnny Miller squeezed off the line of the tournament: “I think it’s the only part of the telecast that Elin Woods is enjoying.”

Stenson, who began the tournament as the world’s ninth-ranked golfer, enjoyed every moment of the final round.

“Right now,” he said, “I feel like I’m up there where I belong.”

Focus at the start of the round was on Woods, and whether he could rally to win from five shots behind. He missed three fairways that led to bogeys on the front nine, and trailed by as many as eight shots on the back nine.

“When you’re playing a golf course like this and you don’t have it, and the greens are this fast and this hard, you can shoot some pretty high numbers,” he said.

Woods did manage his first top 10 at the Players since he won in 2001, and his 16th consecutive top 10 in stroke-play events worldwide.

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The Associated Press contributed to the story.

tgreenstein@tribune.com