Wood holds nerve to deliver at last

A closing 12-foot eagle putt gave Wood a thrilling first victory on the circuit at the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters in Doha.

It came two years after he was four strokes clear with a round to play in Majorca, but shot 76 and handed the title to stablemate Clarke.

“We don’t have to worry about him – he will win and it will be sooner rather than later,” said Clarke, who two months later became Open champion.

Wood, who a year earlier closed with a 76 when leading the BMW PGA Championship, had taken his total of top-10 finishes to 19, including three second places, when he stood on the final tee in Doha on Saturday one behind Sergio Garcia and George Coetzee.

Having led by three at the start of the day, he was in grave danger of suffering more bitter disappointment.

Instead, however, he hit a 300-yard drive into perfect position, a towering six-iron over water to 12 feet and, after looking at the leaderboard for the first time all day, sank the putt.

“It feels amazing – a dream come true,” said the 25-year-old who came fifth in the 2008 Open as an amateur and then a year later missed out on the play-off between Tom Watson and Stewart Cink at Turnberry only by bogeying the final hole.

“I’ve been knocking on the door a few times and it’s not happened.

“Winning on the European Tour is not easy. Now there’s an enormous weight off my shoulders and I feel I can go on and win more.

“You don’t get many chances in a play-off, so I knew that was my chance – and I took it.”

Although he won the Thailand Open in August last year, this was on an entirely different level with two of the world’s top five – Justin Rose and Louis Oosthuizen – and a host of Ryder Cup stars and major winners in the field.

“I probably went to sleep about midnight and woke up probably three, four, five, six (times). I knew I was having a lot of support from all of the text messages – a couple of them woke me up at one o’clock in the morning,” he said.

Coetzee was left as the nearly man once more – this was his 21st top-10 finish on the circuit – despite a superb 65 containing an eagle and six birdies.

The last of those came courtesy of a pitch to five feet on the 18th. The putt took him one in front, but Garcia birdied the final two holes for a 66 and they then sat and waited to see what Wood could produce.

It was a remarkable effort given a start in which he missed a three-foot birdie chance on the second – he blamed a spike mark for that – and a double bogey on the 223-yard next after he fired his tee shot wide and then hit the rock face in front of him.

Putts of 35 and 18 feet at the eighth and ninth were just the boost he needed, however, and a 15-footer on the 14th kept him in touch as the pressure built.

Garcia would have gone back into the game’s top 10 for the first time in over three years if he had won, but he will take a lot of positives from his first tournament of the year.

Swede Alex Noren and England’s Steve Webster tied for fourth, while Rose’s 68 for joint 16th kept him at fourth in the world ahead of Oosthuizen.

Wood and Garcia now move on to Dubai for the last leg of the Tour’s three-week Desert Swing. Lee Westwood plays his first tournament of the year there.

Tiger Woods was on course for his first win of the year at the fog-delayed Farmers Insurance Open in La Jolla, California.

Woods held a commanding lead after three rounds with the tournament set to finish today following the fog susupension that was imposed on Saturday.