Tim Clark wins the Players Championship for his first PGA Tour victory

Reporting from Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. -- Robert Allenby recalls a conversation sometime back in February, lending a sympathetic ear as Tim Clark lamented his inability to take home a PGA Tour trophy.

“He was telling me, ‘I just can’t win; I just can’t win,’” Allenby recalled. “I told him you’ve just got to be patient.”

Clark, for his part, has no recollection of that exchange. “I’ve probably had that with a bunch of guys,” he said.

It’s a discussion the South African will have no longer.

Turning his fortunes in a magical six-hole stretch, Clark recorded all five birdies of a five-under-par 67 Sunday to claim his first PGA Tour victory at the game’s richest event — the Players Championship.

“This may just be what gets me started,” Clark suggested after his one-stroke triumph over Allenby secured the $1.71-million first prize and rewrote the tournament record for largest 36-hole comeback.

Seven shots off the pace heading into the weekend, Clark played his final 36 holes with a single bogey despite a TPC Sawgrass layout that quickly turned from spongy and scoring-friendly into a dry, slick beast.

Davis Love III (68) was the only other player to break 70 Sunday as gusty winds swirled and nerves were tested.

“He looked like he was playing out there on a Tuesday,” said Charley Hoffman, Clark’s playing partner. “It didn’t look like a Sunday Players Championship round, for sure. He didn’t miss a shot.”

Clark’s 10- foot par putt at No. 18 established 16-under 272 as the benchmark for the final six players. All fell away except for Allenby, who watched his 11-foot birdie putt at the island 17th hang on the lip and couldn’t summon a birdie at the last.

“I couldn’t watch it, to be honest,” said Clark, who let a tournament official deliver the news on the practice range.

It was a laudable finish on a day that saw Tiger Woods generate headlines by withdrawing on the seventh hole, disclosing a neck injury that he’d been fighting for weeks. Golf’s No. 1 draw is expected to undergo MRI testing this week; doctors have told him it may be a bulging disk.

“There’s tingling down my fingers,” Woods told a pool reporter. Three tournaments back from his self-imposed hiatus stemming from a sex scandal, his status for next month’s U.S. Open suddenly is in question.

Phil Mickelson could have assumed the world’s No. 1 ranking with a win, but bogeyed two of his first three holes and never put any pressure on the leaders. A two-over 74 left him nine shots behind Clark, tied for 17th.

“The conditions were exactly what I was hoping they would be,” Mickelson said, “but unfortunately I didn’t take advantage of them.”

Clark became the second man to make the Players his first PGA Tour victory, joining 2002 champion Craig Perks. A solid ball-striker with eight runner-up finishes in his nine seasons on the circuit, he’d never found the right combination to close the deal.

His past two may have been the most painful. Two shots ahead with four holes remaining at last year’s Colonial, he missed putts at both the final hole of regulation and first extra hole that would have won. Steve Stricker eventually won the playoff.

Then at January’s Bob Hope Classic, he laid up from 225 yards out at the closing par five because he didn’t think a three-wood would hold the green. He missed the eight-foot birdie try, though.

“You do start to wonder when is it going to happen for me,” said Clark, whose $14.7 million in career PGA Tour earnings before the week was the most for anyone without a win. “I guess that’s the nature of this game.

“Sometimes you don’t have to play your best to win tournaments. Luckily for me, this week I did play my best. That’s about as good as I can play.”

Lee Westwood, the 54-hole leader, remained a threat as well until getting stung by the island 17th. Scrambling with back-nine pars to stay within striking distance, he got a wedge too high into the breeze and watched it splash into the water.

“If you don’t play well,” said Westwood, who finished four shots back, “you don’t deserve to win.”

jshain@orlandosentinel.com