Jan 16 Goydoswins

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The only leaderboard Paul Goydos saw on the back nine was blocked by the trees. The cheers weren’t coming from the final group behind him, but three groups ahead of him where 16-year-old Tadd Fujikawa finished up an amazing week at the Sony Open.

“I never felt like I was going to win,” Goydos said. Nothing new there. His only victory in 14 years on the PGA Tour came at the 1996 Bay Hill Invitational, back when Nick Faldo was winning the Masters instead of calling the shots from a TV booth, when some players were using wooden clubs, when Tiger Woods was still an amateur.

Even more stunning was the finish at Waialae, where two chips banged off the pin on the 18th hole. One of them a good break for Goydos because it set up a tap-in birdie, the other a bad break for Luke Donald because it kept him out of a playoff.

The third chip from Charles Howell III missed the pin all together, and so did the 15-foot putt that followed.

“I feel very fortunate,” Goydos said. Three birdies in the final four holes gave the 42-year-old Goydos a 3-under 67 and a one-shot victory over Howell and Donald.

Howell’s only PGA Tour victory came in 2002 at the Michelob Championship, which is now an LPGA event. This one looked to be his when he took a two-shot lead to the back nine over Donald, four shots clear of Goydos.

But it changed quickly. Howell made consecutive bogeys with a poor tee shot on the 12th and a pedestrian chip on the 13th. Howell saved par with a 12-foot putt on the 16th to give himself a chance, and a beautiful tee shot on the 18th just cleared a bunker and rolled quickly on the firm fairway until it trickled into the rough. Howell had the same shot earlier in the week, hit 8-iron and made eagle. This time, the ball didn’t fly out of the rough, and he came up 50 feet short.

“The chip just wasn’t good enough,” he said, and the birdie attempt from 15 feet away was worse.

Donald was the only one of the three who never had the lead, yet he was in the mix all afternoon. His chip for eagle to force a playoff from right of the green hit the pin squarely, but spun out.

And so the tournament had two stars – Goydos for his first victory in 11 years, Fujikawa for his inspiring play. Goydos was asked if there was anything they had in common, and about the only thing that came to mind was the paycheck.

“My understanding is he hits it farther than me and hits it better than me,” Goydos said. Goydos was good enough, and he carried his sarcasm into the evening.
“I set some goals,” he said. “And one of them was to win every decade.”

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