Watson wins after late surge

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November 9, 2014

Bubba Watson beat Tim Clark on the first hole of a sudden death play-off to win the World Golf Championships (WGC) HSBC Champions on Sunday.

The victory gives the American his first WGC title and his third win this year. He said it was one of the biggest of his career for several reasons.

“For me this is the big one. It’s very big because I always wanted to win outside the US,” BBC reports Watson to have said.

“It’s my seventh win, gets me closer to 10 wins which has always been my goal. It’s a World Golf Championship, so when you add it all up it means a lot.”

The American was plagued by inconsistency throughout the final round at the Sheshan International golf course.

Watson had already bogeyed three and birdied six when he arrived at the 16th hole but somehow still clung to a two shot lead.

He lost the lead after carding his fourth bogey of the round on the 16th and following up with a double bogey on the 17th.

Just when he seemed to have thrown away victory, Watson went on to eagle the final hole with a putt from a bunker and card 70 to tie Clark for first place on 11-under.

“It was such a tough bunker shot. You are not really thinking about making it, but I told my caddie it’s been a wild day, a wild couple of holes, but if we can make this it changes everything and it went in like a putt,” he said of the shot.

Clark also went into the play-off on the back of a positive performance on the last hole.

He shot four bogeys during the round, but nailed his sixth birdie of the day on the 18th hole to card a three-under 69.

However, the South African couldn’t replicate the performance when he replayed the 18th during the play-off.

Watson completed his turn-around by nailing a 20 foot putt to birdie the first play-off hole after Clark could only make par.

The South African said he was disappointed with the loss despite not expecting to be in contention for the title at the start of the tournament.

Rickie Fowler, Hiroshi Iwata and Graeme McDowell were tied for third on ten-under. Ian Poulter, Thorbjorn Olesen and Martin Kaymer finished eight-under and tied for sixth place.