Immelman Wins First Masters

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Trevor Immelman of South Africa won the 72nd Masters tournament on Sunday, a triumph of will by the tough 28-year-old over a demanding golf course on a brutal day. In a performance evocative of and inspired by Gary Player, the first South African winner of the Masters, Immelman fought through high winds and the pitfalls of the Augusta National Golf Club’s last nine holes to stop Tiger Woods’s quest for the 2008 Grand Slam.Immelman, who began the blustery day with a six-stroke lead over Woods, battled the conditions and his own inexperience to defeat Woods, who shot a closing round of 72, by three strokes. As he took the champion’s walk up the 18th fairway, bathed in shafts of soft light shining through the Georgia pines, Immelman smiled, waved and fought to keep his emotions in check. After parring the last hole for a round of 75 — the highest final round by a Masters champion since Arnold Palmer’s 75 in 1962 — he embraced his brother; his parents, June and Johan; his wife, Carmanita; and his baby, Jacob. “It was so tough and I was just trying to be tough to hang in there, because there’s disaster around every corner as I showed on those last few holes,” Immelman said before slipping into the green jacket awarded to Masters champions. “I knew it was going to be tough when I looked out the window this morning and saw the wind blowing. “Last week I missed the cut in Houston and here I am sitting here as the Masters champion. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard of.” One by one, Immelman’s pursuers fell by the wayside, undone by the combined pressure of the final round and the winds that tossed balls into hazards, off greens and into the water. His closest pursuer when the round began, Brandt Snedeker, finished with a 77 and tied for third with Stewart Cink. Steve Flesch, who started the day three strokes behind, wound up with a 78 after bogeying four of the last five holes. Snedeker tied Immelman at 10 under par with an eagle at the second hole, but that was as close as he got. He bogeyed the third hole and three more on the front nine to fall four strokes behind. A bogey by Immelman and a birdie by Snedeker at the 12th hole narrowed the margin to three strokes, but Immelman birdied the 13th and Snedeker bogeyed, and that was that. “It was a tough day,” Snedeker said. “Trevor played fantastic. I obviously couldn’t get anything going, couldn’t make any putts when I needed to. I’m still a little emotional, as you can tell, but it’s one of those things. You’ve got of kind of pick yourself up, realize what you did wrong and go fix it.” Woods fought with his putter all day, missing two short putts that could have put some pressure on Immelman. He missed a 4-footer at the fourth hole and a 4-footer at the 13th. He joked afterward that he would not be making any forward-looking statements again, like the one on his Web site early this year that characterized winning the Grand Slam as “easily within reason.” “I learned my lesson there with the press,” he said with a smile. “I’m not going to say anything. It’s just one of those things when you’re out there playing, you couldn’t care less. You’re trying to win a golf tournament. You’re trying to put yourself in position, which I did. I just didn’t make the putts.”