Phil Mickelson held off hard-charging former champions Tiger Woods and Mark O'Meara yesterday to win the Mercedes Championship for the second time in Carlsbad, California, yesterday.

Mickelson, who also captured this tournament in 1994, shot a four-under-par 68 to ward off Woods and O'Meara, who both shot 64 and briefly shared the lead.

But Mickelson, the only player in the elite field with four rounds in the 60s, had four birdies over a five-hole stretch bridging the front and back nines to regain sole possession of the top spot.

The 27-year-old left-hander stumbled with a bogey at the 14th but responded with his seventh birdie of the afternoon at the parfour 15th, enabling him to take a two-shot lead to the final hole, which he bogeyed.

Mickelson claimed the $306,000 first prize with a fourround total of 17-under 271. He now has 12 career victories, eight of them in tournaments played in the first three months of the year.

Woods, who won last year's rain-shortened event in a play-off, eagled the par-five ninth and birdied the 10th to join Mickelson at 14 under. His Florida neighbour, O'Meara, the 1996 champion, made it a three-way tie with birdies on six of the first 10 holes.

But Woods and O'Meara, playing four holes ahead of Mickelson, each had only two birdies the rest of the way. Mickelson caught fire with a birdie on the par-five ninth hole, adding birdies at the 10th, 12th and 13th to move to 18under. First-round leader John Cook and Nick Price of Zimbabwe were fourth on 13-under 275, followed by two strokes by Sweden's Gabriel Hjertstedt, Stewart Cink, Mark Calcavecchia and David Duval. Duval stumbled to a 73 and failed in his bid to become the first golfer in 45 years to win four straight PGA Tour starts.

The Mercedes Championships was limited to 1997 tournament winners and 30 of the 31 victors competed. Bill Glasson, who won the Las Vegas Invitational, is recovering from arm surgery.