ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, June 2, 1996 TAG: 9606030141
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: OOLTEWAH, TENN.
SOURCE: Associated Press
DESPITE STUMBLING midway through the final round, Tiger Woods claims a four-shot victory.
Tiger Woods came back to the pack Saturday, but there was nobody there to greet him and the Stanford sophomore won the NCAA golf championship by four strokes.
Woods followed impeccable rounds of 69-67-69 with an eight-over-par 80 on the 7,039-yard, par-72 Honors Course near Chattanooga. The three-under total of 285 was the only sub-par finish in the field and good enough for a four-shot victory over Rory Sabbatini of Arizona, who shot 75 Saturday.
Arizona State held off UNLV by three shots to win the team championship.
Lewis Chitengwa of the University of Virginia carded a 76 to finish seventh with a 5-over-par 293. His finish is the best by a Cavalier at the NCAA Championships since 1940 when Dixon Brooke claimed the individual medalist title.
Woods is known to mark his career by the accomplishments of the young Jack Nicklaus, who won the NCAA title in 1961, but Woods was in no shape Saturday to give the victory any long-term perspective.
``I can hardly think, let alone figure that one out,'' he said. ``It may take awhile, as it did at the U.S. Amateur. That took two or three weeks. I don't know how long this one will take.''
``Tired,'' Woods said when asked how he felt after adding the NCAA title to his two U.S. Amateur titles.
``It took a lot out of me today. People will never know how much it took for me to get it back.''
Woods' day and nearly his tournament began to fall apart at the par-4 ninth, where he tried to flop his third shot onto the green but knocked it into the water on the other side instead. He took a triple bogey, then bogeyed the next four holes to lose seven shots in just five holes.
By then the nine-stroke lead he had to start the day was more than half gone, and Woods said he felt the tournament slipping away.
``I was thinking, `I've got to get it back,''' he said. ``That's why I'm so exhausted. I dug really deep to get it back.''
Mike Ruiz of UNLV shot 72 Saturday and finished in a tie with Darren Angel of Arizona State (76) for third. Tim Clark (74) of North Carolina State and Brad Elder (77) of Texas finished tied for fifth.
LENGTH: Medium: 51 linesby CNB