Victory adds to Woods legend

It wasn't a major, but that didn't stop his competitive juices flowing. In the end, Tiger Woods won the NEC Invitational - shooting a final-round 71 for a total of six-under-par 274, a shot clear of Chris DiMarco and two ahead of Paul McGinley, Vijay Singh and Ryan Palmer - at Akron, Ohio, on Sunday to extend his remarkable record in the world golf championships. The victory was his 10th in 20 appearances in these events, which started in 1999.

When these championships - which also feature the American Express championship, the Accenture Matchplay and the World Cup - were first mooted, Woods was one of those to the fore in advocating tournaments where the best would play against the best. We can see why.

The $1.3-million cheque he picked up with this latest win means he has earned $12,335,833 (equivalent to €10,090,419) in World Golf Championships.

Woods became the first player to win the tournament four times - he also won in 1999, 2000 and 2001 - and was recording his seventh top-five finish in seven appearances in this particular tournament.

"We don't have enough tournaments here," quipped Woods, whose experience of the course came in handy coming down the stretch in search of the birdie that would edge him clear.

The birdie came on the par-five 16th, despite pushing his tee-shot to the right behind trees. It meant he could only play a recovery back onto the fairway and was left a 189-yard seven-iron approach over water to the green. He was then left with a 20-footer downhill that had fooled most of those ahead of him.

But Woods recalled that he'd had that putt in previous years and never gave it quite enough break.

"I made sure I threw the ball out there a little bit more, and I said 'now you overdid it, you hit it high'," Woods recalled. "It started breaking and I thought it had a chance, and it just snapped at the end. I thought it was going to lip out, which was how my whole day was going, but it lipped in, which was sweet."

While the win was Woods's fifth of the season - coming on top of his two major wins, in the US Masters and the British Open, as well as the Ford Championship and the Buick Invitational - and strengthened his position at the top of the US Tour money list, it was another case of a close call for DiMarco, who hasn't won a tournament since the 2002 FBR Open, one of three career wins. Since then, he has been second or third on no fewer than 11 occasions.