GOLF:GRAEME McDOWELL didn't, in the end, win the Chevron World Challenge; Jim Furyk, who ended a two-year winless drought, did. But, for a week where the 30-year-old Ulsterman was due to be kicking his feet up beside a pool in Florida, his runner-up finish in the megabucks tournament was highly productive and, aside from the financial windfall, brought the benefit of jumping him back into the world's top-50.

Furyk fired a final round 67 for 275, 13-undr-par, which left him just one stroke clear of McDowell, while Pádraig Harrington – who had an adventurous round which wouldn’t have been misplaced in a rollercoaster theme park – produced an unlikely eagle-par-birdie finish for a 70, for 277, which left the Dubliner sharing third place with European number one Lee Westwood.

If McDowell may have felt like someone gate-crashing a party at the start of the tournament, only getting into the field late-on as a replacement for its absent host Tiger Woods, the northerner certainly made sure he made the most of his ticket to the late-season limited-field shindig at Sherwood Country Club in southern California.

While Furyk pocketed the €908,000 winner’s cheque (the fifth largest top prize anywhere in 2009), McDowell – in 55th in the world rankings when he got the late call-up – entered the final round tied for the lead with Korea’s YE Yang knowing that a top-three finish would be sufficient to move him back into the world’s top-50 to earn him a precious invite to the US Masters at Augusta National in April.

Although the official world rankings won’t be released until later today, McDowell’s sole possession of runner-up should see him being propelled up to 38th place – a leap of 17 places – in the world which earns him an invite to Augusta and copper fastens his place in the Accenture Matchplay in February.

McDowell had started slowly which left him chasing Furyk coming in. But McDowell finished strongly with birdies on the 16th and the 18th (where his approach pitched just behind the flag but, unfortunately for him, didn’t spin back) for a closing 70.

“I was trying to hole it,” admitted McDowell of that final approach, but he got the three-foot birdie putt that enabled him to finish a shot ahead of Harrington and Westwood, who bogeyed the last.

Harrington, briefly, got back into the hunt for the title with a chip-in eagle on the 16th which brought him to 10-under, two behind Furyk. But it wasn’t to be enough. On a wild and somewhat erratic day, that hole-out was the third of his final round as he also holed his bunker shot on the second for eagle and chipped in on the fifth for par. At least Harrington’s birdie finish on the 18th lifted him up to a share of third.

Furyk, who hadn’t won a tournament since the 2007 Canadian Open, had an adventurous run-in which saw him hole a 40-footer for par on the 17th and, then, birdie the 18th with a six-footer that gave him a first win in the tournament.

McDowell grabbed the late invite which came his way with Woods’s off-course troubles with both hands. He’d stopped off for an extra day in Los Angeles en route back from the World Cup in China to make sure he would be available in the case of Woods pulling out of his tournament after last week’s car crash and the late call-up to the event gave McDowell a lifeline to turn around a season where his best form had been reserved for the majors.

“I feel very fortunate to receive the invite, it was a great opportunity for me,” insisted McDowell, “I made the decision I wasn’t going to go chasing the Top-50 in the world rankings. I had options in Australia this week, South Africa coming up here in the next couple of weeks . . . I kind of made the decision I was just going to believe in my game and get myself in the Top 50 at the start of next year. Obviously (then) this opportunity came along.”