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Only five weeks removed from a mysterious six-month leave of absence to attend to personal issues, Dustin Johnson broke through for a major comeback victory at the WGC-Cadillac Championship, and in the process extended a remarkable streak of winning at least one PGA Tour event in each of his first eight years after joining the Tour directly out of college.  Johnson won via the classic formula of hanging within site of the lead for most of the week, then sprinting home under the wire, but the first three days of play belonged to a hot J.B. Holmes,  who arrived at Doral with two top-10 finishes in his last three starts, then blistered the revamped Blue Monster with a dazzling Thursday 62 that set a new course record and beat the field by four shots.  Though Holmes could only back this up with a 73 on Friday, he still maintained a two-stroke lead over Ryan Moore on a day that would be remembered mostly for world number one Rory McIlroy, in a fit of semi-humorous frustration, flinging his 3 iron far into an 8th hole pond.  On a Saturday which saw relatively few low scores, the long-hitting Holmes then added a two-under-par 70 and suddenly he held a five-shot lead over a pair of equally powerful players, Bubba Watson and Johnson.  But it became apparent fairly early that Sunday would not be Holmes' day, however, as bogeys at the 3rd, 5th and 6th quickly moved him two behind Watson (who birdied four of his first seven) and, by the turn, only one ahead of Johnson.  With Holmes failing to turn things around on the back, the tournament looked very much like Watson's to win until he too had the wheels fall off, as he rapidly bogeyed the 11th, the par-5 12th and the long par-4 14th.  This mini-collapse left Johnson on top by one, and he bumped that margin to two with a clutch birdie at the watery par-3 15th.  From that point on, pars were more than good enough, allowing Johnson to claim his second WGC title (following a fall 2013 triumph at China's WGC-HSBC Champions) and place himself firmly back among the world elite going forward...................Thirteen years removed from his last European Tour win, and having last cracked the PGA Tour's top 160 in earnings in 2010, 44-year-old Alex Cejka might well have seemed in over his head playing the U.S. circuit in 2015 - but that didn't stop him from landing his first American victory in a dramatic five-man playoff at the Puerto Rico Open.  In a week when windy, occasionally rainy conditions kept scoring high among a field annually rendered light by the concurrent WGC-Cadillac event in Miami, Cejka rode a Friday 67 to a one-shot halfway lead before a disappointing Saturday 75 left him two behind co-54-hole leaders Scott Brown (the event's 2013 winner) and Chris Smith.  But he roared out of the gate quickly on Sunday, birdieing four of his first six holes en route to turning in 32, then hung on with an incoming 37 to shoot 69, and post a 281 total - good enough to join veteran Tim Petrovic and Sam Saunders (Anold Palmer's grandson) in what seemed likely to be a tie for third.  This was because rookie Jon Curran and touted 22-year-old Argentinian prospect Emiliano Grillo arrived at the par-5 18th one shot ahead of the trio - and then promptly both bogeyed the hole (in downwind conditions) to create the highly unexpected playoff.  And the extra session would prove a short one as Cejka holed a 15-footer to birdie that same 18th, then raised the trophy after Saunders, the only other player with a realistic chance to match him, missed frrom eight feet.  Cejka, a Czech-born German citizen, became a decidedly older first-time PGA Tour winner, with the victory coming in his is 287th career start...................Long established as a consistent winner on his native Sunshine circuit, 35-year-old South African Trevor Fisher Jr. claimed his first victory on the European Tour by charging to a runaway five-shot triumph at the co-sanctioned Africa Open, played upon the windswept bluffs at East London.  Matching up against a relatively light field (due to the concurrent WGC Cadillac Championship in the U.S.), Fisher initially played steady golf, opening with 69-68 to stand four behind halfway leader Matt Ford on Friday evening.  But after eagling the par-5 3rd and turning in 33 on Saturday, Fisher roared home with a five-under-par 30 on the back nine to post a 63 and vault himself into a two-shot lead over Ford (who carded a 69 despite a double-bogey at the 366-yard 8th), and a four-shot margin over countryman Jaco Van Zyl.  Despite making four birdies (against one bogey) over his first seven holes on Sunday, Fisher's lead was cut to one (Ford having logged for birdies of his own) but a two-shot swing at the 470-yard 9th (Fisher's birdie vs. Ford's bogey) swung the momentum, and when Fisher added a birdie at the par-3 10th to extend the lead to four, it was effectively all over..................Having entered the week with top 10 finishes in all three of the circuit's 2015 events (including as T2 at the last stop, the Queensland PGA), 38-eight-year-old Matthew Millar finally broke through for his first Australasian Tour victory at the New Zealand PGA Championship, in Auckland.  The key for Millar was a bogey-free Saturday 64 that vaulted him into the 54-hole lead, a round which saw him tour the Remuera Golf Club's par-35 front nine in 29 shots.  Two more birdies on the back would ultimately stake him to a two-shot lead over Josh Geary and a three-shot advantage over Kristopher Mueck and Geoff Drakeford, margins which would prove sustainable on a Sunday upon which gusting winds made it difficult for anyone to mount a significant charge.  Playing steadily, Millar consolidated his position with birdies at the 7th and 8th, and while a bogey at the par-4 9th might have given his pursuers a ray of hope, an even par back nine punctuated by a birdie at the par-5 finisher ultimately saw him home to a three-stroke victory.

Posted on Sunday, March 8, 2015 at 12:47PM by Registered CommenterDaniel | Comments Off