Spaceman wings to victory

The Spaceman used a putter called the “Winged Victory” to win his first event on the PGA Tour this year and in keeping with the wacky Swede’s reputation, it also looked a bit like a Spaceship.

But Jesper Parnevik used the putter, given to him by his playing partner in the Pro-Am, to good effect as he just crept home to beat Mark Calcavecchia in the Honda Classic last night by one stroke.

Surprisingly, in the perfect scoring conditions at Coral Springs, Parnevik could only muster a level par 72 while his playing partners and other players chasing him home could not forge ahead of him during the round.

Australian Geoff Ogilvy came close to winning his first event on the PGA Tour but with a final hole bogey five, he could only tie for second with New Zealand’s Craig Perks, who fought valiantly before also coming unstuck at the tricky last hole.

Calcavecchia was band-aiding his game down the back nine but stayed in touch with the Swede right to the last putt.

The Phoenix Open Champion admitted that he lost the plot on the last hole where he pulled a four iron too far left to apply any pressure to Parnevik, who also made a mess of the 18th hole. Calc three putted from there, leaving Parnevik two putts for a bogey and the win.

"I'm obviously pretty disappointed right now," Calcavecchia said. "I goofed. I had my chances. I'm not going to say Jesper didn't deserve to win, but I blew it."

But Parnevik didn’t care how he won, as long as he won. It didn’t have to be as snazzy as his trousers.

"I'll take it any way I can get it," Parnevik said. "It's more a relief than happiness. You never want to win that way."

But spare a thought for John Daly, if his putter had behaved a little better, he would have romped home to victory, his first in six years on the PGA Tour.

Daly missed nine putts from within seven feet during the last round, most of them lipping out and the Wild Thing was very philosophical about his play this week which saw him back to his amazing form of old.

“I am happy with the way I played this week. I made a couple of errors coming down the stretch but it was mainly the putter, some of them (the lip outs) I just couldn’t believe…but hey, that’s golf!”

Ty Tryon, a 16-year-old pupil of David Leadbetter impressed everyone this week with his sterling finish.

Tryon became the second-youngest player to make the cut in a PGA TOUR event and with a final round 68, playing alongside Tom Lehman, the youngster finished at 10-under in his debut, tied for 39th.

He has also pencilled in next years event as Honda gave him a sponsors invitation to appear next year, without having to qualify like he did this year.

"I can't believe it's over, but at least I had a great round today," said Tryon, who would have made $12,480 for his showing but collected nothing because of his amateur status.