Toms holds on to win Wachovia title

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- All that matters is that David Toms won the Wachovia Championship for his first victory in nearly 20 months.

All anyone wanted to talk about was the way he finished.

Toms was so dominant over four days on a difficult golf course that he could have made a quintuple-bogey 9 on the 18th hole and still won. He made an 8.

"My game plan to was make a birdie and finish off in style," Toms said Sunday after his two-shot victory at Quail Hollow. "I went from being in total control and picking my targets to trying to hang on and finish."

In a sloppy finish to an otherwise spectacular week, Toms raised his arms in mock triumph after making a mockery of the final hole.

He didn't look anything like the guy who built a five-stroke lead going into the final round and never let anyone closer than three strokes until the very end.

His drive went 50 yards off line and into the trees. He tried to chip back toward the fairway and went into a hazard, just short of the creek. He laid up short of the green, then took four putts to get down from 45 feet.

Toms knows he'll hear about it from his peers.

"They're going to realize that I played a great round of golf until that last hole," he said. "And they're going to stick it to me a little bit for the way I finished. But that's fine. I can take it. I've got the trophy and that big check."

The bottom line was his 10-under 278, good enough for a two-stroke victory over Vijay Singh (68), Robert Gamez (70) and Brent Geiberger (69). Toms won $1,008,000, the largest payoff among his eight PGA Tour victories.

Gamez knew it was over when he three-putted for bogey on the par-5 10th, which dropped him five strokes behind.

As he spoke, Gamez glanced up at the television and watched Toms take his final two putts from 3 feet for an inauspicious ending to Charlotte's first PGA Tour event in 24 years.

Gamez smiled.

"It's tough seeing that," he said. "If I could have done anything on the back ..."

Still, he knows that final hole only mattered in the record books. Gamez won his first PGA Tour event at Tucson in 1990 by four strokes, despite a double bogey on the last hole.

"You just let your guard down," he said. "And 18 is not a hole where you can let your guard down. But he obviously putted well all week."

Despite how it ended, this victory was important. Toms had not won since the Michelob Championship in October 2001, toward the end of a breakthrough year in which he won three times, including the PGA Championship.

He has been grinding ever since, frustrated by 11 finishes in the top five in his last 41 tournaments. Each close call only made his burden heavier.

"I finally got that monkey off my back," he said. "It will be a week that I'll remember for a long time, just because of the way I played golf. It wasn't a fluke that I won, because I felt like I played great golf all week."

He put it all together at Quail Hollow and gave the inaugural Wachovia Championship a worthy winner. The PGA Tour returned to Charlotte for the first time since the 1979 Kemper Open, and this tournament got rave reviews -- even from those who missed the cut.

Asahi Ryokuken International

NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. -- Rosie Jones shot a 2-under-par 70 to win the Asahi Ryokuken International, ending a streak of 17 straight LPGA Tour victories by foreign-born players.

Jones, who led after each round at Mount Vintange Plantation Golf Club, finished at 15-under 273, three strokes ahead of Wendy Ward, who closed with a 70. Laura Diaz (73), Patricia Meunier-Lebouc (67) and rookie Lorena Ochoa (70) tied for third another shot back.

Jones is the first American to win on the LPGA Tour since Meg Mallon took the Canadian Women's Open in August. Two years ago, Jones ended a 10-tournament winless run by the Americans with a victory at the Kathy Ireland event in Texas.

The 43-year-old Jones won for the 13th time in her career and the first time since taking the Big Apple Classic in 2001.

Nichirei Cup

TOKYO -- Annika Sorenstam won her last tournament before facing the men in the PGA Tour's Colonial, closing with a 4-under 68 for a nine-stroke victory in the Nichirei Cup.

Sorenstam finished with a 13-under 275 total on the Tokyo Yomiuri Country Club course. She has two victories in six events this season after winning 13 worldwide titles last year. Six Japanese players tied for second.

The Swedish star will play in the Colonial on May 22-25 in Fort Worth, Texas, where she'll become the first woman to compete on the PGA Tour since Babe Zaharias in the 1945 Los Angeles Open.

Kinko's Classic

AUSTIN, Texas -- Hale Irwin won his first Champions Tour title of the season with a birdie on the second playoff hole to beat Tom Watson in the inaugural Kinko's Classic.

Irwin and Watson both shot 1-over 73 in the final round and finished at 8-under 208 after they both birdied the 18th hole of regulation, snapping what had been a four-way tie with Tom Kite and Bob Gilder.

-- From wire reports