American Jim Furyk nailed a five-foot putt for par on the first playoff hole to capture the six million dollar PGA Wachovia Championship on Sunday. Furyk was handed an opportunity when South African Trevor Immelman made a three-putt bogey at the final hole of regulation.
Furyk took advantage to register his 11th victory on the PGA Tour. Furyk (71) and Immelman (70) tied at 12-under-par 276 in intermittent rain at Quail Hollow, four shots ahead of Adam Scott, who lucked into third place when Retief Goosen made a quintuple-bogey at the final hole.
The South African dropped all the way from third to a tie for 10th. Furyk, who turns 36 on Friday, collects 1.08 million dollars and may vault to fifth in the world rankings when they are updated on Monday.
He was two shots down with five holes left, but birdied the par-4 14th to cut the margin to one, which is where it stayed until Immelman's 18th-hole blunder.
Immelman, 26, can only rue what might have been. He has won six times overseas, but this would easily have been the highlight of his career, beating a field that included eight of the world's top 10 players. A member of last year's losing International team at the Presidents Cup, he came into the event ranked 81st in the world.
LEADING SCORES (USA unless noted), x Furyk wins on first hole of playoff):
276 - x-Jim Furyk 68-69-68-71, Trevor Immelman (RSA) 68-72-66-70
280 - Adam Scott 71-72-66-71
281 - Lucas Glover 69-73-67-72, Bill Haas 68-72-71-70
282 - Steve Lowery 73-68-69-72, Joey Sindelar 71-74-68-69, Vaughn Taylor 70-70-71-71, Bo Van Pelt 70-64-73-75
283 - Retief Goosen (RSA) 70-71-65-77, Geoff Ogilvy (AUS) 71-71-70-71
284 - Shaun Micheel 70-70-68-76, Charles Warren 73-70-70-71
285 - Tim Clark (RSA) 73-70-71-71, Jesper Parnevik (SWE) 73-71-70-71
286 - Nick Watney 72-73-71-70
287 - Stephen Ames (TRI) 71-73-71-72, John Senden (AUS) 71-73-69-74
288 - Shigeki Maruyama (JPN) 72-71-67-78
291 - Ernie Els (RSA) 71-71-75-74, Sergio Garcia (ESP) 74-69-73-75, Carl Pettersson (SWE) 71-74-75-71, Vijay Singh (FIJ) 71-68-71-81
292 - Justin Rose (GBR) 70-74-68-80, Mike Weir (CAN) 73-71-72-76
293 - Stuart Appleby (AUS) 72-67-74-80, Rory Sabbatini (RSA) 68-73-73-79
294 - Rod Pampling (RSA) 75-71-72-76
298 - Daniel Chopra (SWE) 72-74-75-77, Richard S. Johnson (SWE) 74-72-77-75
0301 - Ian Leggatt (CAN) 75-71-75-80.