DiMarco Has Grip on Title

Chris DiMarco used to get ridiculed for the way he holds his putter. Now, it gives him the winning touch.

With his unique “Psycho Grip,” DiMarco made a 15-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole Sunday at Pine Mountain, Ga., to tie David Duval, then won the Buick Challenge on the first playoff hole when Duval missed an eight-foot putt for par the conventional way.

“You’ve got to be tough when you putt the way I do,” DiMarco quipped, celebrating his second career victory.

“But that whole thing has calmed down. I don’t get nearly as many questions about it as I used to. I’ve shown it works.”

DiMarco lines up his putts with a normal grip, then shifts his right hand over the front edge of the shaft, following through with an awkward motion that vaguely resembles a man rocking a baby.

Duval, the defending tournament champion, closed with a nine-under 63 on the Mountain View course, walking off with a one-stroke lead.

He went to a television booth overlooking No. 18, watching DiMarco make the clutch putt that gave him a 65 for the round and tied Duval at 21-under 267.

DiMarco earned $612,000.

On a day when winds howled from 25-30 mph at Oklahoma City, Bob Gilder survived for a one-stroke victory over Doug Tewell in the season-ending tournament for the top 31 money winners on the Senior Tour.

The victory was worth $440,000, a record for the seniors, and helped Gilder’s chances of being voted rookie of the year. He finished at 11-under 277.

Annika Sorenstam won a showdown with Se Ri Pak, overcoming a four-hole deficit for a 1-up victory in the World Ladies Match Play Championship at Narita, Japan.

Sorenstam earned $144,000 for her career-high seventh victory this year, pushing her season total to $1,828,868, just $49,985 behind the LPGA Tour record set last year by Karrie Webb.

South Africa’s Retief Goosen defeated England’s Steve Webster in a playoff to win the $1.26-million Madrid Open and become the top money winner in Europe.

Goosen’s $210,000 winner’s check brought his season’s earnings in Europe to $2,521,218.

Pat Bates shot a three-under 69 to win the Buy.com Tour Championship by three strokes at Prattville, Ala., and earn a promotion to the PGA Tour.

Bates’ four-under 284 was the highest winning score in the championship’s history.

Tennis

Defending champion Lindsay Davenport won a title for the third consecutive week, defeating Yugoslavia’s Jelena Dokic, 6-1, 6-4, in the final of the Generali Ladies tournament at Linz, Austria.

Davenport has seven titles this season and has won 12 consecutive matches.

She will return to No. 2 in today’s rankings, trailing only Jennifer Capriati.

Second-seeded Tim Henman of England defeated fourth-seeded Roger Federer, 6-3, 6-4, to win the Swiss Indoors championship at Basel.

A weary Marat Safin of Russia successfully defended his title at the St. Petersburg Open in Russia, rallying to defeat Rainer Schuettler of Germany, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.

It was Safin’s 10th career title and second this year.

Sixth-seeded Sjeng Schalken of the Netherlands defeated Finnish qualifier Jarkko Nieminen, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3, in the final of the Stockholm Open.

Nieminen, 20, is the first player from Finland to reach an ATP final.

Miscellany

Rosenborg defeated Brann, 6-2, at Bergen to clinch the title in Norway’s first division and establish a European record of 10 consecutive soccer league championships.

Scotland’s Glasgow Rangers won nine consecutive titles in the 1990s.

Korea swept the men’s and women’s short track speedskating relays at Salt Lake City to wrap up four days of Olympic qualifying with the maximum number of individual and relay-team berths for the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.

The United States also secured a spot in every race. Canada, China and Japan, all powerhouses in the sport, also landed the maximum number of berths.

Michigan’s Alan Webb, who broke Jim Ryun’s high school mile record earlier this year, pulled away to beat Wisconsin’s Matt Tegenkamp and prevail in a duel of freshmen in the Big Ten Cross-Country Championships at Savoy, Ill.

The Russian men are in danger of not being among the eight teams in the final for the first time after a disastrous qualifying routine in the world gymnastics championships at Ghent, Belgium.

In the provisional standings of qualifying, which ends today, Belarus was ahead of the United States and a surprising South Korea. Russia was fifth.

Frederic Covili of France used a big second run in the World Cup giant slalom to win his first title in the season-opening race at Soelden, Austria.

Bode Miller of the United States finished fifth.

France’s Anne-Lise Touya needed 61 seconds to defeat Italy’s Ilaria Blanco, 15-3, and win the women’s sabre world championship at Nimes, France.

In the men’s foil final, Italy’s Salvatore Sanzo defeated France’s Loic Attelly, 15-14.

Olympic champion David O’Connor of The Plains, Va., won his fifth U.S. Equestrian Team Fall Eventing Championship with a penalty-free stadium jumping ride on The Native at Fair Hill, Md.

Assa Abloy reached Cape Town, South Africa, the fifth boat to finish the first leg of the round-the-world Volvo Ocean Race. The boat arrived 31/2 days behind illbruck, the first-leg winner.

The boats leave Cape Town on Nov. 11 for the next leg to Sydney, Australia.