Retief Goosen's win sets up great duel in Houston
BY Bruce Young | US PGA Tour | 2003 Chrysler Championship | Wrap | 03 Nov 2003
While it will be of little significance to Retief Goosen, his victory in today’s Chrysler Championship near Tampa has created the perfect promotional tool for the USPGA Tour when their end of season Tour Championship begins in Houston next Thursday.
By edging Vijay Singh into second place it now means the PGA Tour money list for 2003 will go down to the wire with Woods needing to win and Singh needing to finish outside the top three in order for Woods to claim his fifth straight money list title.
Vijay now has a $US767,587 lead in the money race and with a first prize in Houston of $1,080,000, the only way that Woods can win the money title now is for him to win the event. Second prize in Houston is $648,000 so that will not be enough to get the job done.
Today’s victory was Goosen’s third on the USPGA Tour following his 2001 US Open and 2002 Bell South Classic victories and, together with his sixteen wins elsewhere, make him one of the game’s more prolific winners in recent times. He was also a winner of the Trophee Lancome on the European Tour earlier this year.
He held Singh at bay throughout the final round and although the gap closed to one shot late in the front nine, he extended to win by three from Singh and by four from Briny Baird. Baird’s finish was significant as it gained him a spot in next week’s Tour Championship where the top thirty on the money list gain a start. Baird’s third place moved him from 35th to 22nd.
Performances at the other end of the spectrum were also important with the top 125 assured of full playing privileges for next season. Just sneaking through were Kent Jones, Pat Bates, Glen Hnatiuk and Esteban Toledo, who survived despite missing the cut here.
Leading Australians were Peter Lonard who equalled his best stroke play finish of the year with an equal 9th along with Geoff Ogilvy. Aaron Baddeley was 40th.
Lonard has finished the year in 50th place on the money list with $US1,323,594 and Ogilvy 45th with $US1,477,000.
Stuart Appleby and Robert Allenby are the only two Australians to have made it into the Tour Championship field.
