Retief Goosen won the Transitions Championship as Tom Lehman's challenge fizzled out on day four.
Seventh Tour title for South African
Retief Goosen won the Transitions Championship as Tom Lehman's challenge fizzled out on day four.
The 50-year-old American led by a shot overnight, but three bogeys in an outward 39 dropped him into the pack, and he was unable to fight his way back into contention.
Lehman then drove into water for a double-bogey six on the 16th and finished down in eighth place after a disappointing 75.
For Goosen, 40, it was a seventh US Tour victory, a haul that includes two US Opens.
He won by one from Charles Howell and Brett Quigley on the same Copperhead course at the Innisbrook Resort where he captured the 2003 Chrysler Championship.
Having chipped in for birdie at nine, a 17-foot eagle putt on the 575-yard 11th proved to be the decisive blow as the South African ended four years without a victory in America.
From one behind, he went one ahead - and although Howell caught him with his third birdie in four holes at the 14th, the American followed up with back-to-back bogeys.
Goosen, whose last title came at the Africa Open in his home country in January, failed to get up and down from sand on the 16th and found dense rough by the 17th green.
However, he played a great chip to three feet and then holed from nearly five feet at the 18th to take the $972,000 first prize.
Chances
Goosen's closing 70 gave him an eight-under-par aggregate of 276.
Howell and Quigley both had birdie chances on the last but missed from 25 and 24 feet respectively.
Quigley was also a joint runner-up in Puerto Rico last week and has now played 342 PGA Tour events without a victory.
Charlie Wi, trying to become the second Korean winner on the circuit in three weeks after YE Yang's Honda Classic success, took over at the top with five birdies in his first 11 holes.
But the 37-year-old then bogeyed three times, while Steve Stricker's chances disappeared when he finished with consecutive bogeys. They shared fourth spot with Australian Matthew Goggin.
Goosen is 20 pounds lighter than he was last year, having received a reminder from Gary Player about the importance of fitness.
"I feel I'm a little more prepared for the game than over the last couple of years," he said two months ago
"I have been working hard on my fitness and everything. I'm probably the fittest now that I've been in the last five years."
