Cink is finally able to hold lead

Stewart Cink had a reputation as a good golfer who just couldn’t finish off a tournament.

His collapse during the fourth round of the PODS Championship in March left him with only one victory in the nine events in his career in which he had the lead going into the last day.

On Sunday, he put that behind him, holding off late charges from Tommy Armour III and defending champion Hunter Mahan to win the Travelers Championship in Cromwell, Conn., by a stroke. With the victory, Cink was projected to go to a career-high No. 6 in the world ranking.

Cink shot a three-under-par 67 to finish at 18 under for the fifth victory of his career and first since 2004.

Armour (65) and Mahan (65) tied for second.

Cink earned the first win of his career in Connecticut as a rookie, and came into the day with a two-stroke lead over Heath Slocum.

“I know there has been some talk that I have not been a closer,” Cink said. “They had every right to say that, because I felt the same way myself. So I felt that I had something to prove to myself.”

He finished with a career-best 262 over the four rounds, five shots better than his 1997 total of 267. It was his first win after six top-10 finishes this year, earning him $1.08 million. It pushed him to third place in the FedEx Cup standings behind Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, and into second place in the U.S. Ryder Cup standings.

For a while, though, it looked as though the tournament was heading for a three-way playoff.

Leading by a stroke, Cink hit a 365-yard tee shot on the 18th into the crowd to the right, and his approach went just over the green. But he recovered nicely, getting up and down from just under two feet to save par.

------

Eun-Hee Ji got her first win on the LPGA Tour with a come-from-behind, two-stroke victory over Suzann Pettersen in the Wegmans LPGA at Rochester, N.Y.

The South Korean shot a five-under 67 to finish at 16-under 272 at the tricky Locust Hill course. A 22-year-old in her second year on the tour, Ji had a previous best finish of second to Pettersen in South Korea in October in the Kolon Championship.

Pettersen shot a 72 and surrendered a three-stroke lead. Ji got in front for the first time with a seven-foot birdie putt on No. 15, where Pettersen missed a five-footer for par.

------

Jeff Sluman won the Bank of America Championship on the Champions Tour by two strokes with birdies on three of the last four holes at Concord, Mass.

He birdied the 15th hole to break a tie with Loren Roberts, then made putts of more than 30 feet on the 17th and 18th to beat Roberts, the second-round leader.

Sluman, who joined the senior tour after turning 50 on Sept. 11, shot an eight-under 64 and finished at 17-under 199 at the 6,471-yard Nashawtuc Country Club.

It was Sluman’s first victory since the Greater Milwaukee Open on the PGA Tour in June 2002.