David Duval and
Fred Couples won the Shark Shootout with a closing round 11-under-par 61 today.
Duval and Couples finished
with a 32-under 184 and won by six strokes, the largest margin since the tournament
began in 1989.
"I
wasn't worried if I hit a bad shot," Couples said. "In fact, he (Duval) probably
hit his best shots when I hit a bad one. That tells you a lot about him."
Couples and Duval made
only one eagle in the three-day event. The pair's 30 birdies and no bogeys earned
them a shared win of $350,000 in the $1.5 million event.
Duval won the event for the first time. He finished second with Scott Hoch in
1997.
It was Couples's
third Shootout win. He won with Raymond Floyd in 1990 and again in 1994 with Brad
Faxon.
"I didn't
play as well today as I did the first couple of days," Duval said. "But I sure
like playing with Freddie. I'm going to play in the Skins game next week and that's
it for me for this year."
Hoch and Scott McCarron shot a 61 to finish the tournament at 190, 26-under. They
each earned $100,000.
"We
won the consolation tournament," Hoch said, who added that it would have been
tough to beat the winners since the final round used the scramble format.
In that format, both partners
hit their tee shots on each hole. They select the best of the two shots and play
their second shot from that selected spot. This format is followed after each
shot throughout the round.
"I
really thought we would birdie every hole today," Couples said. "And with this
format I knew we were going to win before we started. But, maybe everyone else
felt that way too."
John Cook and Peter Jacobsen's 61 moved them into third place in the tournament.
The pair finished at 191.
Andrew Magee and Jay Haas finished with 24-under to come in fourth. Greg Norman
and partner Steve Elkington's 12-under par 60 left them fifth.
Norman, the tournament host, is concluding the event's 11-year stay in California.
The Shark Shootout will continue next year at Doral in Miami, Fla.
Norman, the 44-year old Australian who now makes his home in Hope Sound, Fla.,
said he felt "a little bit of sadness."
"We
built up a nice tournament but there's a new chapter to be played out in the Shark
Shootout," he said.
U.S. Ryder Cup captain Ben Crenshaw and Bruce Lietzke's 8-under 64 was their best
round of the tournament and left them in last place at 209. Each earned $37,500
for the tournament.
Crenshaw missed the cut in all of the 13 PGA Tour events he entered in 1999.
