Howell gains first PGA tour victory

Charles Howell III accomplished his two major goals for the year in a breakthrough week in the last Michelob Championship.

The 23-year-old Howell won his first PGA Tour title Sunday, closing with a 4-under 67 and making a birdie when he really needed it to beat Brandt Jobe and Scott Hoch by two shots.

"It's hard to put into words. It really hasn't sunk in yet," said Howell, who likely secured a spot in the season-ending Tour Championship for the top 30 money winners.

"When I started the year, my No. 1 goal was to make the Tour Championship and there was no question about that," said Howell, the former Oklahoma State star who won the 2000 NCAA tournament.

His second goal was winning, and the $666,000 he won vaulted him from 37th place to 18th on the money list. With plans to play every event until the end of the season, he's all but in.

"Pretty unbelievable," he said.

The victory, in his 68th career start, also put to rest any more talk that Howell had become the dreaded "best player yet to win" on tour.

"I've been asked a lot of questions, `When are you going to win?' or `What do you think it takes to win?' or `You should win,"' he said. "After a while, you start listening to it."

Howell ended such talk with a clutch up-and-down birdie on No. 15, hitting his approach to the 506-yard hole left and over the green, chipping to about 24 feet and cooly rolling his putt in.

Earlier, he had an eagle, four birdies and three bogeys, and found challenging for the lead and giving shots back actually helped his cause.

"I was just enough in contention to get nervous but I was just enough out of contention to get hacked off at myself for not being ahead," he said. "So for the first win, I probably couldn't give a better scenario."

Howell finished at 14-under 270 to become the 14th first-time winner on the PGA Tour this year, tying the record set in 1991, and the sixth first-timer at Kingsmill.

He's also be the last because it was the 22nd and final PGA Tour event on the River Course, which will play have an LPGA Tour event next year.

Jobe, who matched Howell's birdie at No. 15 but bogeyed the next hole, drove into the rough on the par-4 finishing hole. He hit his second shot into the greenside rough, missed a chip to tie it and two-putted for 72.

Jobe's career-best finish on the PGA Tour earned him $325,600.

Hoch's 47-foot birdie putt on No. 18 gave him a 69 to match Jobe at 272. Geoff Oglivy was fourth at 273 after a 70. Billy Mayfair shot a 73 and finished at 274 after being in contention to win most of the day.

The ending wasn't nearly as dramatic as the 15th hole, and Howell said he didn't know he was leading when he stepped to the tee on No. 18.

After pausing to consider what club to play, he bombed a drive 311 yards - the longest of the day on the finishing hole - and hit his second shot onto the elevated back shelf of the green, about 10 feet away.

"That's probably the best drive I have ever hit in my life, considering the circumstances," Howell said, adding he thought he needed a birdie. "I couldn't feel my arms on that second shot."

It proved not to matter. Jobe was two groups behind and hit consecutive approaches short on No. 16 and bogeyed. He hit into the rough twice on the finishing hole, when he knew he had to make a birdie.

But it was the 16th hole that hurt the most, Jobe said.

"I'm at 14 under standing in the middle of the fairway and I've got a ball going straight at the hole, perfect," he said. "If it flies two more yards, I'm probably at 15 under and leading the golf tournament."

Instead, his second shot came up short, his third - with a 3-wood - rolled up onto the fringe and then back, and he two-putted from there.

Throughout Sunday, the leaders were Jobe, intent on certifying his nine victories overseas as legitimate; Mayfair, seeking to end a four-year winless drought; and Howell, looking for that his first victory.

Mayfair joined the also-rans on the 383-yard 14th hole when he drove into the rough, failed to get out on his next two shots, chunked a chip onto the greenside fringe, chipped well past the hole, and two-putted.

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