Singh finishes strong

JANN HENDRY/Acorn Newspapers JOB WELL DONE—Tiger Woods, right, congratulates Vijay Singh on winning the Chevron Wood Challenge at Sherwood Country Club on Sunday. Singh shot an 11-under par for the tournament. Longtime PGA Tour star Vijay Singh knows all the tricks of the trade, which is why come Christmas morning, you can bet he'll be out knocking it around somewhere on the links.

"It's the best time to hit balls," the 45-year-old said. "There's nobody on the golf course."

Singh spent the pre-holiday weekend raking in a ton of money at Thousand Oaks' Sherwood Country Club—$1.35 million, to be exact—as a final-round 67 lifted the native Fijian to his first career victory at the Chevron World Challenge in eight trips.

Singh's 11-under par 277 bested Steve Stricker by a single stroke.

"I hit the ball very good off the tee, and I think the key to this golf course is keeping the ball in play," Singh said. "There's a lot of trouble around if you don't hit a good shot off the tee."

JANN HENDRY/Acorn Newspapers UP AND DOWN—Fred Couples hits a chip shot on the 18th hole. Pre-tournament rain led to some tricky course conditions.

Singh's winning score was the closest to par since Davis Love III beat Tiger Woods with an 11under par during a 2003 thriller.

"You know, it was so wet out there, a lot of mud balls," Singh said. "You've got to know how to control the mud balls. I think everyone was complaining about it, all the players.

"You just had to manage yourself around the course. I think that's what I did very well, and made key putts."

Stricker, who posted backtoback 68s on Saturday and Sunday, said Sherwood played tough for all four days of competition.

"The conditions out of the fairway were extremely difficult," Stricker said.

"The ball was sitting right down on the bottom, and it was muddy, soft, with not a lot of grass in some spots. It was difficult to hit good iron shots."

Hunter Mahan and Anthony Kim tied for third at 7-under par. Columbian sharpshooter Camilo Villegas and tour veteran Jim Furyk were fifth at 5 under.

After grabbing the lead with a 67 on Saturday, Kim, the 23year-old USA Ryder Cup hero, posted a 73 Sunday to fall out of contention.

"I'm just happy that I kept it under 80 all four days, and I'm not kidding," said Kim, who'd taken some time off before the event.

"The rust is going to show up one day—one, two, maybe three; you're hoping not all four. It happened to show up (Sunday), which is unfortunate. But you know what? I hung in there. I could've shot 100, and I shot 1over. I'm going to try and take away the positives, like how good my short game was even though I was a bit rusty."

Including the Pro-Am contest, the tournament drew 47,467 fans, including 15,222 spectators on Sunday.

Woods, the host who continues to recover from knee surgery, said the Tiger Woods Foundation stood to gain nearly $2 million from the tournament, which celebrated its 10th anniversary.

"It was a huge success, again," Woods said. "It didn't look that way (last) Wednesday with the weather coming in here. Luckily it blew out of here, and it's been great weather. People came out and supported the event."

Woods added that, in the future, he'd prefer to move the tournament up to the first week of December, right after the Skins Game.