With all eyes focused on Tiger Woods’ impressive (if faintly predictable) victory in the WGC Match Play in Tucson, maiden victories by Brian Gay (Mexico), Mark Brown (India) and Ewan Porter (Australia), and even Paula Creamer’s thrilling comeback win in Hawaii, went largely overlooked.  But relatively speaking, no landmark triumph was ignored more than South Africa’s Louis Oosthuizen who, after tying for 3rd in Dubai three weeks ago, ran away and hid in the Sunshine Tour’s Telkom PGA Classic, winning by a mind-boggling 14 shots.  I wonder: could Tiger have beaten him?
 
 
PGA, Euro, Asian & Australasian Tours:  WGC Accenture Match Play Championship – Marana, AZ

Tiger, Tiger, Tiger.  There were a few anxious moments on Wednesday, when it looked like world #65 J.B. Holmes really might upset Tiger Woods in the first round of the WGC Accenture Match Play.  But then Woods did a late-round impersonation of Bobby Locke, pulled himself out of the fire, and for the rest of the week, all was right with the world.  Tiger was pushed in a superb third-round match (wherein an unfortunate Aaron Baddeley discovered that making 10 birdies in 20 holes might actually not be enough to win) but thereafter victories over K.J. Choi, defending champion Henrik Stenson and, finally, an 8 & 7 final-round route of Stuart Cink (which featured the aforementioned 14 Woods birdies in 29 holes) put matters to rest.  It was Tiger’s 15th win in 26 WGC events, his fourth consecutive PGA Tour triumph and his third straight Tour event in which he set a tournament record for margin of victory.  Not surprisingly, Woods conceded afterwards that “I think this is the best stretch I’ve ever played” – which, depending on whether one thinks he’s lifted his game to an entirely new level or is simply on a hot streak, could be good or bad news to his PGA Tour brethren. For Cink, it was an impressive week until Sunday, with his Saturday victories over Angel Cabrera and Justin Leonard both riding prolonged periods of brilliance.  Semi-final losers Justin Leonard and Stenson also did themselves proud, with Leonard logging his eighth top-10 finish in his last 11 starts, dating back to October of 2007.  But in the end it was Tiger, who in many ways felt inevitable throughout the course of the week – but only after he slipped by J.B. Holmes.

                       FINAL RESULTS          MONEY LIST          PGA TOUR STATS

                                        INTERVIEWS:     WOODS     CINK
 
 
PGA Tour:  Mayakoba Golf Classic at Riviera Maya-Cancun – Qintana Roo, Mexico

It took 10-year PGA Tour veteran Brian Gay 293 starts to log his first official Tour victory, but by adding a Sunday 69 to earlier rounds of 66-67-62, Gay successfully held off hard-charging Steve Marino (who birdied four of his final eight holes) to land that initial triumph at the Mayakoba Classic.  The victory represents a logical culmination for Gay, whose fortunes have climbed in recent years to include 88th and 86th-place money rankings in 2006 and ’07 – though his last top 10 came in June of ’07 at the Stanford St. Jude Classic.  The weaker field consigned to an event played concurrently with the WGC Match Play may not have proven so weak for Gay’s victory jumped him some 74 spots in the World Ranking, from 204th to 130th.

                       FINAL RESULTS          MONEY LIST          PGA TOUR STATS

                                               INTERVIEW:     GAY
 
 
Asian Tour:  SAIL Open Golf Championship at Jaypee Greens – Noida, India

A 33-year-old far eastern journeyman, New Zealand’s Mark Brown was quietly plugging away on the Asian Tour prior to the SAIL Open, entering play ranked 271st in the world.  But consistent rounds of 69-69-67-69 over the Greg Norman-designed course at Jaypee Greens added up to a breakthrough win for Brown, his 274 total comfortably beating pre-tournament favorite Jyoti Randhawa, Korea’s Noh Seung-Yul and Australia’s Scott Hend by four.  Having left the competitive circuits from 2003-06, Brown is now fully exempt in Asia through 2010 in addition to climbing to 3rd in the Order of Merit (behind S.S.P. Chowrasia and Jeev Milkha Singh), and jumping 90 spots in the World Ranking, to 181st.

                       FINAL RESULTS          ORDER OF MERIT          ASIAN STATS
 
 
Sunshine Tour:  Telkom PGA Championship – Johannesburg, South Africa

Up-and-coming South African star Louis Oosthuizen just picked the wrong week to explode.  With the golfing spotlight shining solely upon the WGC Match Play event in  Tucson. Oosthuizen defended his 2007 Telkom PGA Championship with an epic performance, stringing together rounds of 66-63-66-65 for a 260 total that missed matching the Sunshine Tour’s 72-hole aggregate record by a single shot.  Lest anyone think that the Country Club of Johannesburg’s 7,500-yard Woodmead course is somehow a pushover, it will be noted that nobody finished within email distance of Oosthuizen, who utterly routed runner-up Hennie Otto by 14 shots.  Despite leading by nine after 54 holes, Oosthuizen vowed to aggressively pursue the aggregte record during the final round and quickly made good on the promise, birdieing  five of his first six holes to seemingly bring the mark within range.  A bogey at the 486-yard, par-4 11th slowed him a bit, but birdies at the 13th and 14th got him back into contention.  Unfortunately, he was unable to birdie a pair of late par-5s (the 16th and 18th) making for a semi-disappointing finish to an otherwise career-altering week.  Oosthuizen  will now head off to the European Tour ranked 67th in the world, and though it’s unfortunate that so few non-Africans will notice his spectacular victory, he can at least take solace in the fact that a year from now, he’ll likely rank comfortably among the world top 64, and thus be playing under that singular spotlight in Tucson. 

                        FINAL RESULTS          MONEY LIST          SUNSHINE STATS
 
 
Australasian Tour:  Moonah Classic – Victoria, Australia

Closing with a bogey-free round of 66, Australian Ewan Porter turned back the visiting American Nationwide Tour contingent and won the Moonah Classic impressively, his 275 total finishing seven shots ahead of invaders D.J. Brigman and Tee McCabe.  The victory was the first for the 25-year-old Porter, who briefly considered withdrawing before Saturday’s third round after suffering a neck injury, then not only gutted it out for a victory but also managed to be the only player in the field to break par for all four rounds.  The win lifts Porter from 663rd to 285th in the World Ranking, and into 1st place in the early season Australasian Order of Merit.

                                           FINAL RESULTS          MONEY LIST
 
 
LPGA:  Fields Open in Hawaii – Honolulu, HI 

There was talk during the Golf Channel’s Thursday LPGA broadcast that 2005 Women’s British Open champion Jeong Jang was capable of winning more often than her two career titles might suggest, and as this week’s Fields Open wound down, title number three was looking pretty good.   But along came Paula Creamer to birdie four of her last five holes (including the last three in succession) to finish at 16-under-par 200 and steal the victory, with the clincher coming on a 6 iron to five feet at the 407-yard 18th.  Jang, though obviously disappointed, can hardly be faulted in defeat; the first- and second-round leader closed with a four-birdie, one-bogey 69 that would surely have gotten the job done but for Creamer’s late heroics.  Australian Lindsey Wright took solo 3rd at 202, with Annika Sorenstam (who posted 70-66-68) claming 4th at 204.  Also notable was the T5 logged by England’s Karen Stupples, who closed with 66 in only her second LPGA event after missing most of 2007 giving birth, as well as Michelle Wie's tumble to a tie for 72nd after opening with a solid 69.  Creamer experiences the rare occurrence of not moving up a single spot (holding at 5th) in the Rolex Ranking with her victory, though she does climb to second on the LPGA money list.

                         FINAL RESULTS          MONEY LIST          LPGA STATS

                                        INTERVIEWS:     CREAMER     JANG