TIGER WOODS won the Zozo Championship in Japan yesterday. With his three-shot, 19-under victory, Woods now has 82 wins on the PGA Tour, a total that matches Sam Snead’s 54-year-old all-time victory record on the PGA Tour.

Woods entered yesterday morning having to play the final seven holes thanks to torrential rains that soaked the course for much of the weekend. That meant course organizers had to scramble, but American viewers got the benefit of a couple of hours of unexpected golf.

As the day began, Woods stood at 18-under, three strokes clear of Hideki Matsuyama and six clear of Rory McIlroy, Gary Woodland and Sungjae Im. But he had the poor fortune to start his round on the 490-yard, par-4 12th, the toughest hole, where he’d bogeyed once and parred twice earlier in the tournament.

Woods bogeyed that hole, allowing Matsuyama to draw within two. Matsuyama missed a short putt on the par-5 14th that would have put him just a single stroke back of Woods. Right after him, on the same hole, Woods rolled in a 10-footer for birdie to reestablish the three-stroke lead. Matsuyama birdied 16, pulling to within two strokes, but missed a long putt on 17 to force the issue. Woods played steady golf the rest of the way in, and never let Matsuyama get too close.

“This was big,” Woods said afterward. “It was a lot closer than people probably thought.”

As of 2013, Woods appeared stuck on 79 wins, his last coming at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational that year. Multiple surgeries and off-course problems appeared to signal the end of Woods’ career as a winning golfer … that is, until he won the 2018 Tour Championship and followed that off with a historic victory at the 2019 Masters.

But that victory in Augusta appeared to have hollowed out Woods; he later indicated that he’d spent so much effort getting back up to the mountaintop that he had nothing left once he was there. He missed the cut in two of the three remaining majors, and finished tied for 21st in the U.S. Open. He bowed out of the FedEx Cup playoffs in August and underwent knee surgery, announcing plans to come back for this tournament in Japan.

What this win means for Woods is substantial. He’s continuing to prove that he’s still one of the best players on Tour — not dominant, certainly, but always capable of dominating.

(SD-Agencies)