Woods Play Through on 50-and-Over Tour

L.A. Times Archives

Aug. 7, 2006 12 AM PT

From the Associated Press

The ultimate goal for Tiger Woods is to surpass Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 victories in professional majors.

Along the way, he also hopes to break Sam Snead’s mark of 82 PGA Tour wins.

Woods won his 50th PGA Tour title Sunday, shooting his fourth consecutive six-under-par 66 for a three-stroke victory over Jim Furyk in the Buick Open at Grand Blanc, Mich.

Woods reached a season-low 24 under and made a career-high 28 birdies in the tournament to hold off Furyk -- who closed with a 64 -- for his fourth win of the year. Woods earned $864,000 to push his tour-leading total to $5,127,563.

He picked up his latest win after his emotional British Open victory and before he shoots for his 12th major two weeks from now at the PGA Championship.

Woods became the seventh member of the PGA Tour’s 50-win club and improved to 21 for 21 when leading by more than one stroke after three rounds. Woods, 30, beat Nicklaus’ record pace to 50 wins, which Nicklaus reached in 1973 at 33.

Woods said he hopes he’ll have enough success to catch Snead. “It’s going to be a lifetime, a career, to get to that point and attain something like that,” he said. “It took me 10 years to get here, hopefully I can continue playing well over the next 10, 20 years.”

Vaughn Taylor, who finished five shots back, is in awe of Woods.

“He’s probably the greatest player to ever play the game, and we get to watch him every week,” Taylor said. “I can’t even imagine doing the things he’s done.”

Woods, also the 2002 winner at Warwick Hills, fell one stroke short of his 72-hole best of 25-under 263 from the 2002 WGC-American Express Championship, then said he really doesn’t like playing in shootouts.

“I enjoy playing where single digits is a good winning score,” he said.

Joe Durant (67) finished four shots back, alone in third. Taylor (68) and Scott Verplank (69) tied for fourth at 19 under with Sean O’Hair (67) to improve their chances of earning spots on the U.S. Ryder Cup team.

Taylor moved up to seventh, and Verplank went from 22nd to 18th. The top 10 players earn automatic berths on the team next month in Ireland.

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Driving it home

Tiger Woods’ 50th PGA Tour victory was also his sixth in a tournament with Buick as title sponsor. (Buick is one of Woods’ sponsors. If he wants to win at Riviera, maybe he should get a deal with Nissan.)

Tournaments won on the PGA Tour:

Sam Snead 82

Jack Nicklaus 73

Ben Hogan 64

Arnold Palmer 62

Byron Nelson 52

Billy Casper 51

Tiger Woods 50

Walter Hagen 45

Cary Middlecoff 40

Gene Sarazen 39

Tom Watson 39