PALM HARBOR, Fla. — Kevin Streelman finally won in his 153rd start on the PGA Tour with a game that looked as if he had done it many times before. PALM HARBOR, Fla. — Kevin Streelman finally won in his
PALM HARBOR, Fla. — Kevin Streelman finally won in his 153rd start on the PGA Tour with a game that looked as if he had done it many times before.
Streelman didn’t make a bogey over the final 37 holes on the tough Copperhead course at Innisbrook. He didn’t miss a shot over the last 11 holes on his way to a 4-under 67 Sunday for a two-shot win in the Tampa Bay Championship.
Boo Weekley, who teed off three hours before the leaders, had a tournament-best 63 and waited to see if it would be enough.
Streelman, locked in a battle with Justin Leonard over the final hour, came up with one clutch shot after another. He hit 5-iron into 6 feet on the par-3 13th hole, the toughest at Innisbrook in the final round, to take the lead for good.
“Probably the best shot of my life in that situation,” Streelman said. “It’s just how I envisioned it, and I pulled it off.”
He locked up the win with a 20-foot birdie putt on the par-3 17th, and he was all smiles walking up the 18th fairway. Until Sunday, the biggest tournament Streelman won might have been the club championship at Whisper Rock.
The victory sends Streelman to the Masters next month for the second time in his career.
Lewis claims
No. 1 ranking with rally
PHOENIX — Stacy Lewis won the LPGA Founders Cup to jump to No. 1 in the world, taking advantage of Ai Miyazato’s collapse on the 16th hole.
A day after Lewis was penalized two strokes for her caddie’s blunder on the short par 4, the American took a two-stroke lead with a birdie on the hole after Miyazato made a double bogey following an errant approach shot that left her with an unplayable lie in a desert bush.
Lewis closed with an 8-under 64 at Desert Ridge to finish with a tournament-record 23-under 265 total on the cactus-lined Wildfire layout. She won the 2011 Kraft Nabisco for her first tour title and has won six times in her last 23 events.
Coming off a victory two weeks ago in Singapore, the 28-year-old Lewis won for the seventh time in her LPGA Tour career to end Yani Tseng’s 109-week run at No. 1.
Frost wins
Toshiba Classic
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. — David Frost won the Toshiba Classic, shooting a 65 to defeat Fred Couples by five strokes and tie the tournament record of 19-under 194 set by Jay Haas in 2007.
Frost joined 2011 winner Nick Price as the only golfers to lead the event wire to wire in its 19-year history. It was his fourth career Champions Tour victory and first since last year’s AT&T Championship in San Antonio.
Couples, the 2010 champion, began the day a stroke behind Frost and tied him with a birdie on the first hole. That was the last time Frost would relinquish the lead.
He birdied the second and third holes to build a two-shot advantage and his lead never went lower than one the rest of the round.
