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| September 3, 2003 | Wednesday | Rajab 5, 1424 |
Scott cruises to first victory on US tour
NORTON (Massachusetts), Sept 2: Australia’s Adam Scott fired a five-under-par 66 on Monday to win the Deutsche Bank Championship and earn his first victory on the U.S. PGA Tour. Leading by three overnight, Scott finished on 20-under 264, four strokes ahead of runner-up Rocco Mediate, winning $900,000.
Britain’s Justin Rose took third place on 269, while Fiji’s Vijay Singh was fourth, another shot back. Tim Herron and Australian Geoff Ogilvy tied for fifth on 271. World number one Tiger Woods carded his second straight 67 and tied for seventh with Steve Flesch, nine shots adrift of Scott.
Just as he had done in the second and third rounds, the 23-year-old Scott did most of his scoring on the front nine.
He birdied the second and third holes, then had another brace of birdies at the sixth and seventh.
For the tournament, he was 15-under on the front nine compared to five-under on the back.
Scott also took advantage of the 12 par-five holes, which he played at 13-under and led the field with a par-five scoring average of 3.92.
“I felt I had to make birdies out there, with good scores again from the guys who were just behind me,” Scott said.
“So if I shot par, I would not have won. I felt I had to make birdies.”
At one point early in the round his lead reached six strokes. Then Mediate, playing two groups ahead, birdied four straight, beginning at the seventh.
He added another birdie at the 12th.
When Scott made bogey at the 11th, the lead was down to three.
When he realised his lead had dwindled so dramatically, Scott said it was a shock.
“I felt like I was way out in front, but I was only like three in front,” he said.
“It was time to knuckle down and really bury it.”
Scott would make two more birdies, one at the 15th and another at the 18th, but the championship swung to his favour as he played the 13th and Mediate the 14th.
Mediate hit his approach to five feet and was staring at a birdie.
“I hit just the prettiest six-iron I could hit,” Mediate said.
Meanwhile, Scott had flared his drive to the right and in the rough, missed the green to the right with his approach and left himself a 12-foot putt for par.
Facing a downhill putt, Mediate missed to the right.
“I got into the line too much and I didn’t hit it,” he said.
“It’s real simple. I wasn’t like nervous. I hit it right where I was looking, but I didn’t put any speed on it.”
Moments later, Scott boldly rolled the ball into the middle of the cup for his par save.
At the time, he did not realise the significance of the shot.
“I wasn’t playing any attention to the leaderboard at that point,” Scott said.
“I had my work cut out trying to get the ball in the hole and not worrying about other people. My putting was unbelievable on the back nine. Some of the putts I made I surprised myself.”
Although the title is his first in the U.S., Scott already has four victories on the European Tour.
Still, he said winning the Deutsche Bank was a “relief”. “It’s very difficult to win in America,” he said.
“I feel that, being not just a foreigner, but being a young player, there’s a lot of pressure out there on this tour.
“And there are only a few young players who have done very well in the past, and one is probably Sergio (Garcia) and the other is Tiger, really young guys, winning over here a lot. It’s difficult to do.
“So, yeah, I’m relieved, but I’m pretty proud of the way I played today. I played very well and was very solid out there.”
Leading final-round scores:
264 Adam Scott (Australia) 69 62 67 66
268 Rocco Mediate 67 70 66 65
269 Justin Rose (Britain) 63 71 68 67
270 Vijay Singh (Fiji) 65 68 71 66
271 Tim Herron 67 68 68 68, Geoff Ogilvy (Australia) 68 66 68 69
273 Tiger Woods 70 69 67 67, Steve Flesch 66 69 69 69
275 Darren Clarke (Britain) 67 68 67 73, Jonathan Kaye 71 67 63 74
276 Carl Pettersson (Sweden) 71 71 67 67, Tim Clark (South Africa) 71 69 66 70
277 Phillip Price (Britain) 67 72 72 66, Jim Furyk 74 68 69 66, Kent Jones 68 69 72 68, Glen Day 68 68 72 69, Jonathan Byrd 70 71 67 69, John Senden (Australia) 74 64 69 70
278 Dean Wilson 70 70 71 67, Robert Allenby (Australia) 74 64 72 68, Tim Petrovic 66 70 72 70, Briny Baird 71 67 70 70, Darron Stiles 71 68 68 71 Other International Players
279 Peter Lonard (Australia) 70 70 69 70, Paul Gow (Australia) 73 68 68 70, Greg Norman (Australia) 69 67 70 73
280 Glen Hnatiuk (Canada) 69 72 67 72
281 David Frost (South Africa) 69 71 71 70, K.J. Choi (Korea) 67 68 68 78
282 Richard Johnson (Sweden) 71 70 71 70
283 Carlos Franco (Paraguay) 74 68 71 70, Kenichi Kuboya (Japan) 71 67 73 72
284 Jesper Parnevik (Sweden) 72 68 72 72 — Reuters
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