Tiger Woods wins Tour Championship, Justin Rose lifts FedEx Cup

Tiger Woods completes miracle comeback by landing first PGA Tour title since 2013. 

Andy Roberts's picture
Sun, 23 Sep 2018
Tiger Woods wins Tour Championship, Justin Rose lifts FedEx Cup

 

Tiger Woods has completed his miracle comeback on the PGA Tour with victory in the season-ending, 30-man Tour Championship at East Lake.

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Woods, who took a three-stroke lead into the final round, carded a final-round 1-over 71 to prevail by two strokes over Billy Horschel on 11-under par.

The 42-year-old American was ranked outside the world's top 1,000 this time last year - having battled a back surgery and off-course issues to which many people considered his golf career over - but his latest victory now moves him up just outside the world's top 10. 

Woods ends a five-year winless spell - 1,876 days to be precise - dating back to the Bridgestone Invitational in August 2013. 

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The 14-time major champion has now won 80 times on the PGA Tour, meaning he is now two victories away from tying Sam Snead's all-time record of 82 wins. 

Woods has picked up seven top-10 finishes on Tour in 2018.

He led The Open with eight holes only to finish tied sixth and he then chased Brooks Koepka down at the US PGA Championship en route to finishing runner-up. 

Woods has now been installed as the favourite for The Masters in April, where he will bid to win his 15th major title and first since the 2008 US Open. 

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Justin Rose, who trailed Woods at the start of the day by just three strokes in a tie for second, carded a disappointing 3-over 73 to finish tied fourth, but his birdie at the 18th saw him collect the season-long FedEx Cup and lucrative $10 million bonus.

Had Rose not made birdie at 18 then Woods would have collected a third career FedEx Cup title. 

The Englishman, however, hands back his world number one ranking to Dustin Johnson, who rallied with a 67 to finish solo third. 

Rory McIlroy was partnering Woods on Sunday but fell by the wayside with a number of erratic drives on the front nine, and the Ulsterman went on to card a disastrous 74 to finish in a tie for seventh. 

TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL LEADERBOARD

-11 T WOODS (US)
-9 B HORSCHEL (US)
-7 D JOHNSON (US)
-6 H MATSUYAMA (JAP), W SIMPSON (US), J ROSE (ENG)