Weir Knows How to Finish Season

Mike Weir finished off the PGA Tour season in style, sinking a five-foot birdie putt to win the Tour Championship at Houston on the first hole of a four-man playoff Sunday to give the Canadian his first victory of the season.

It was the second consecutive year Weir won the final official event of the PGA Tour. A year ago, he surged past a world-class field at Valderrama to win the American Express Championship.

This one was even sweeter.

Weir, the first foreign player to win the Tour Championship, closed with a 67 and wound up in the playoff with Ernie Els, Sergio Garcia and David Toms.

Only Weir and Toms hit the fairway with their tee shots and only Weir had a decent shot at birdie.

He ended it quickly.

Els, trying to keep alive his streak of at least one victory on the PGA Tour every year since 1994, was stuck behind the trees down the 18th fairway in the playoff when he hit over the branches to about 40 feet. His birdie putt grazed the edge of the cup.

Toms hit the fairway, just short of a sand-filled divot, and could not convert a 35-foot birdie putt. Behind a tree, Garcia got questionable relief but couldn’t get out of the jungle, then hit his third shot over the green. His 80-foot chip broke away at the last second.

Weir, who was in a tie at 14-under 270 after 72 holes, won for the third time on the PGA Tour. It was his first victory in the United States, having won in Vancouver in ’99 and last year in Spain. He won $900,000 and a trip to the winners-only Mercedes Championship.

Tiger Woods finished with two bogeys for a 70 and finished six strokes behind in a tie for 12th. Still, he won the PGA Tour money title and the Vardon Trophy for the lowest scoring average for the third consecutive year. “It wasn’t quite as good as last year, but it was still a pretty darn good year,” Woods said.

Annika Sorenstam set a record for LPGA Tour money winnings and won her eighth tournament of the season with a one-stroke victory over Laura Davies in the Mizuno Classic at Hanno, Japan.

The $162,000 first-prize check pushed Sorenstam’s purses for the year to $1.99 million, breaking the record of $1.88 million set a year ago by Karrie Webb. It clinched Sorenstam’s fourth money title and, barring a withdrawal from the season-ending Tour Championship, virtually guaranteed that she would be the first woman to make more that $2 million in one year.

Not a bad season for the Swedish star, who already had clinched player-of-the-year honors and secured a place in golf history last spring when she recorded the first 59 in LPGA tournament play.

“It is tough to compare it to any other year--I mean, I was the first one to break 60 and then to break $2 million,” said Sorenstam, who finished with a two-under-par 70 and a 54-hole total of 13-under 203. “I just have to think about it.”

At Madison, Miss., Cameron Beckman made up a three-stroke deficit over the final five holes to win the Southern Farm Bureau Classic for his first PGA Tour title.

Beckman, who nearly withdrew from the tournament Wednesday because of a stiff neck, birdied three of the final five holes for a 67 that gave him a 19-under 269 total, one stroke ahead of Chad Campbell. The $432,000 winner’s check moved Beckman, 31, up to No. 50 on the money list.