Tym Glaser, Associate Editor - Sport
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados:
GERMANY'S BERNHARD Langer and Marcel Siem beat Scotland's Colin Montgomerie and Marc Warren in a playoff at the Sandy Lane course to clinch the World Golf Championships' Barbados World Cup yesterday.
In a thrilling climax to a wonderful event, veterans Langer and Montgomerie both found the rough left of the par-three 18th, Warren's chip went about five feet past the hole while Siem's chip - possibly the most important shot of the four-day team event - ended up three feet below the hole to give Langer the better putt.
Looking for par to push the showdown back to the 18th tee again, Montgomerie missed his putt to the right and his long-time rival and Ryder Cup teammate made no mistake to give Germany their second hold on the coveted crown.
The legendary Langer, who is about to turn 50, was thrilled to be collecting trophies again.
"Every trophy is special, as you can guess," he said. "The last few years I didn't win a lot. It's nice to be on a roll because I won with my son last week."
Back in the clubhouse after completing the fourth round, Langer said he thought the Germans would be overtaken.
"I knew that 17 and 18 were very reachable holes. I had a feeling one of them (Scotland or Sweden) might squeeze in 17 but we knew it wasn't going to be easy for them. Then as it progressed we knew we could finish no worse than second," he said.
"I feel bad for Scotland because they deserved to win as well. They played good enough to do that but there can only be one winner. Today we were the fortunate ones."
A disappointed Warren said the Scots did little wrong throughout the day or the tournament.
"Yeah, we did (play well)," the European Tour rookie said. "Again today, no bogeys, no dropped shot.
Made two birdies
"In that format, that was one of our keys at the start of the week. Unfortunately, we only made two birdies.
"The putts just wouldn't go in. Both of us played really well today and unfortunately got pipped at the post there," he said.
Sweden could have made it a three-way battle for the title but a three putt on the final hole saw Carl Petterson and Henrik Stenson painfully miss out by a mere stroke.
Going into the final round, Germany were tied for fourth, five strokes behind the Swedes, and Scotland were two shots off the pace.
While Scotland were steady with a two-under 69 which featured two birdies and no bogeys, Germany barnstormed home with a day's best round of 66 which included six birdies and a potentially fatal bogey at the par-four 17th.
The day was interrupted for almost two hours by a heavy downpour at about 11:30 but that could not put a damper on the huge number of fans who turned out and definitely not the victorious Germans who collected US$1.4 million.
FINAL STANDINGS: Germany 268, Scotland 268, Sweden 269, South Africa 270, United States 271, Spain 271, Argentina 271, Mexico 273, Australia 273, Italy 273, Wales 273, Ireland 275, Switzerland 275, Colombia 277, Canada 278, England 278, Singapore 280, Denmark 281, South Korea 283, France 285, Barbados 288, Trinidad and Tobago 288, Japan 289, Jamaica 295.
