Ogilvy stops Woods’ streak, other top players in victory at Doral

DORAL, Fla. — With Tiger Woods all but out of the picture for the first time in nine months, an all-star cast of golf’s other big names had a rare opportunity Monday to grab the hardware that the game’s No. 1 player has been loath to share.

Woods has so dominated the golf headlines of late that it was difficult to determine the next wave of contenders, but there were Geoff Ogilvy, Retief Goosen, Vijay Singh and Jim Furyk — major championship winners all — battling for a World Golf Championship title. They didn’t exactly distinguish themselves with fine play down the stretch at the Doral Golf Resort in the weather-delayed CA Championship, pointing out again the difficulty of closing out tournaments, and winning at the rate Woods does.

Ogilvy prevailed by a stroke over Goosen, Furyk and Singh, failing to birdie any of the nine holes he played Monday morning and getting the kind of good fortune that Woods believes is paramount to winning. The eventual winner chipped in for an improbable par at the par-3 13th hole from 30 feet moments after flubbing a chip shot in the rough. Had the ball not struck the flagstick and dropped, it would have gone 15 feet past the hole.

It was Ogilvy’s fourth PGA Tour title, to go along with wins at the U.S. Open, Accenture Match Play and Tucson Open. “It was a pretty stellar-looking leaderboard over those last nine holes, so satisfying to beat those players and pretty satisfying winning a big one,” Ogilvy said.

Woods, meanwhile, was left without a trophy for the first time this year, marking the first time since Labor Day at the Deutsche Bank Championship he did not win a golf tournament he entered. It was an amazing stretch, seven straight tournaments worldwide in which he came away the victor, leaving many to wonder whether he could win every event in which he played this year. He had also won three in a row at Doral.

“As players, it’s nice to see somebody else lift a trophy for a change,” Goosen said. A third-round 72 in which he made just one birdie proved to be Woods’ downfall, just a single round of golf that was remarkable for its blandness. Par after par after par is usually not a bad thing in golf, but at Doral in benign conditions, Woods finally could not keep up.

He ended up in fifth place, just 2 shots behind Ogilvy, wondering what might have been had a few more putts dropped, but hardly fretting about it.

“I made too many mistakes this week,” he said. “I had four three-putts this week; I had two terrible lies in bunkers; and a photographer got me on [No. 9 on Sunday],” Woods said. “With all that, to only finish 2 back, I think that’s a great sign.

“That’s the way it goes, you know? People don’t really understand you need to have something happen, a positive thing happen to you to go out there to win tournaments. I heard Geoff [chipped] one in the hole for par. That’s what you need to have happen. Those are the things that happened to me, and things weren’t going that way this week.”

Woods did try to make it interesting, making three birdies in the seven holes he played Monday and getting a bad break when he tried to drive the green at the par-4 16th, where his tee shot came to rest on a sliver of grass, making for an awkward pitch. A birdie there, and who knows? “I noticed he was making a couple of birdies,” Ogilvy said. “It’s fun to see how he does. He always finishes quite strong.”

Woods was scurrying off from Doral, headed home to Orlando, Fla., to compete in the two-day Tavistock Cup, an exhibition between players from his home course Isleworth Country Club and crosstown Lake Nona. He had an afternoon tee time scheduled, but it is hard to believe there will be any sleep lost over Doral.

The linescore starting at the Bridgestone Invitational in August looks like this in PGA Tour events: 1-1-2-1-1-1-1-1-5. Not even Woods can win them all, but by putting himself there so often, he gives himself the chance to do just that. The Masters is two weeks away, and it is hardly a bad thing to arrive at Augusta National coming off a top-5 finish. Ogilvy joined Woods and Darren Clarke as the only players to win multiple WGC events, and in the process stopped Woods’ winning streak in these tournaments at three.

The victory was Ogilvy’s first since capturing the 2006 U.S. Open, where he also chipped in for a par. There it was at the 17th hole. At the time, all eyes were on Phil Mickelson, whose double-bogey at the final hole led to Ogilvy’s victory.

And that’s sometimes what it takes. Ogilvy opened the tournament with a 65 at Doral, then shot 67 and 68. He needed just a 71 in the final round, when it appeared much more would be necessary.

“I felt like I was hanging on a little bit,” he said.

But it was enough to do what nobody else has done in the past six months: win a tournament in which Woods was entered. “It was going to end at some point,” Ogilvy said. “I’m very glad that I did it. It’s a nice place to do it, too, because he’s obviously owned the place for the last few years. He just had one of those weeks.”Here