A Much Cooler Head Prevails

Notorious for fast play and slow burns, Rory Sabbatini has spent the first two months of this year learning to brake and chill, but after playing survivor Sunday at Riviera Country Club, there doesn’t seem to be much he can do about becoming the hottest player on the PGA Tour.

Sabbatini reached out and made the Nissan Open his third PGA Tour title, holding on even though it was slipping from his grasp as a cold offshore wind slapped him in the face on the back nine.

Locked in a four-way tie for the lead, Sabbatini kept his grip, thanks to a laser-accurate seven-iron that stopped five feet from the hole at the par-three 16th, where he rolled in his birdie putt and never looked back.

It was over soon. Sabbatini two-putted from 45 feet to par the 18th hole to finish his closing round of one-over 72. That left him at 13-under 271 for the tournament, just enough to beat Adam Scott by one shot.

As far as story lines go, a reformed hothead staying cool isn’t bad.

“I don’t know if you call it a chip on my shoulder or a monkey on my back,” Sabbatini said, “but any way you look at it, I shed it this week.”

Craig Barlow’s one-under 70 left him in third place at 11 under, and Fred Couples wound up a shot behind in fourth with a 71, playing the last four holes in three over.

Sabbatini’s 72 matched the highest fourth round by a winner in the tournament since Arnold Palmer closed with a 73 and won in 1966 at Rancho Park. Tom Purtzer also had a fourth-round 72 when he won at Riviera in 1977.

Of course, victory is always attractive, no matter how it arrives, and this one was no different. Sabbatini, 29, earned $918,000 and shot to the top of the money list with $2.18 million, just $2,988 less than last year.

He says he hopes to be in the same position at the end of the year.

“I figure if I can end the year at the top of the money list, I might make one-eighth of what Tiger’s salary is.”

In six PGA Tour events this year, Sabbatini has Sunday’s win, a tie for second at Honolulu, a second last week at Pebble Beach, a tie for 10th at the Bob Hope, plus a tie for 16th and a tie for 20th.

And now that Tiger Woods is on the other side of 30, the only player in his 20s with more victories than Sabbatini is Sergio Garcia, who has six.

Scott, last year’s winner in what was ruled an unofficial event because it was limited to 36 holes, plowed through Riviera with a 64 Sunday. Starting the day nine shots behind Sabbatini, the third-round leader, Scott figured he had no chance, but he was almost wrong.

At the moment that Barlow birdied the 15th and Sabbatini and Couples made bogey, there was a four-way tie for the lead at 12 under par.

Scott, who was in the locker room, decided to head out to the driving range to get ready for a possible playoff.

“I really didn’t play with any pressure like these guys in the lead,” Scott said. “It was a much tougher day for them.”

Sabbatini relaxed in a soft chair and hoisted a can of soda afterward and said he had just played the hardest round of golf in his life.

Everything changed for Sabbatini -- and for Barlow and Couples -- at the 166-yard par-three 16th. Playing into the wind, Barlow missed the green. Couples did the same and his ball bounced off a tree, then into a bunker. They wound up with bogeys, falling two shots behind Sabbatini when he calmly and carefully rolled in his birdie putt.

“You know, the 16th was obviously the big one for me. My mentality changed. I was kind of stuck in a rut. On 16, I said I have to do what I can do. Things aren’t going right right now. It’s up to me to change it.

“The wind was blowing pretty good. I backed off it once because a big gust came through and I knew if there were pretty strong gusts, I didn’t have enough club to get to the flag.”

He did.

It wasn’t the finish Couples had hoped for, but he still earned $244,800. He struggled with his putting and started looking shaky after he missed an eight-foot birdie putt at the 13th.

“For a while there, I really wasn’t missing many shots,” he said. “I made a couple pars and then just ran out of gas with some really bad swings.”

Sabbatini made safe pars on the last two holes, needing only a tap-in at the 18th for his victory. Standing at the back of the green, Amy Sabbatini held their 6-month-old daughter, Tylie, while 2-year-old son Harley ran into his father’s arms. The celebration officially began for Sabbatini, whose seven-year professional career has been marked by characterizations that his personality tends to run a shade on the combustible side.

What he accomplished at Riviera seemed a huge relief to Sabbatini and a validation of an improved attitude that was important to him.

Last year was not Sabbatini’s finest, with only three top 10s, his fewest since his rookie year of 1999. And there was an episode at the Booz Allen tournament that seemed to define Sabbatini’s reputation as a hothead when he played out of turn, then walked off a green while playing partner Ben Crane was on it, to protest Crane’s slow play.

Paul Azinger, working the event for ABC as an analyst, was highly critical of Sabbatini. Nick Faldo, another ABC analyst, also criticized Sabbatini when the network ran a tape of the Booz Allen incident during Saturday’s telecast.

Even as he should have been enjoying his victory from his chair late Sunday afternoon, Sabbatini could not resist calling out, though not by name, media members who have been critical of him. Making his four-shot lead after the third round stand up and winning should help his cause, he said.

“You know I didn’t want to give them anything more to fire at me. I feel like there are a few people out there that have taken a lot of potshots at me and ... I didn’t want to give them any more ammunition.

“There are a few people that seem to have their opinions. You know, it’s pretty sad.”

Once he catches his breath, Sabbatini might shift his attention to turning his back on that issue too. Reputations being the sticky things that they are, changing them is probably more difficult than acquiring them in the first place. It might be better for Sabbatini to stay on message, the one about winning at Riviera.

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Final scores

*--* PLAYER 1ST 2ND 3RD 4TH PAR Rory Sabbatini 67 65 67 72 -13 Adam Scott 68 71 69 64 -12 Craig Barlow 67 69 67 70 -11 Fred Couples 66 72 65 71 -10

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