Woods refuses to call in sick, wins at Bay Hill

Monday, March 24, 2003 | 8:52 a.m.

SUN WIRE REPORTS

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Now Tiger Woods might be able to relate to how he makes the competition feel.

Sick.

Just plain sick to the stomach.

The difference is, the sickness that made for a truly retching Sunday at the Bay Hill Club and Lodge will soon pass. Woods isn't planning to go away any time soon, which means there is no end in sight to the indignities he can heap on his fellow players.

Woods won the Bay Hill Invitational -- again. Leave it to Woods to find a way to make his fourth consecutive Bay Hill victory memorable. Dry-heaving his way around the course during the final round, unable to keep down food or drink, Woods won by a tournament-record 11 strokes.

"You kind of think, 'Maybe he'll withdraw and go away,' " said Brad Faxon, who finished in a four-way tie for second place. "That doesn't happen."

What did happen was this: Woods shot a final-round 68 to finish with a 19-under-par 269. Playing in a constant rain, Woods was the only player in the field who didn't take a single bogey in the final round. He managed that despite having spent the better part of the previous night racing back and forth between his couch and the bathroom.

"The night was long," Woods said, "and the day was probably even longer."

Woods' girlfriend, Elin Nordegren, checked out of the hospital on Saturday morning after an overnight stay for a suspected case of food poisoning. She cooked a pasta dinner that night. About a half hour later, Woods' stomach started churning. Early-morning thunder offered Woods the brief hope that the round might get postponed until today. As it was, he teed off only eight minutes behind schedule.

"If I wasn't in contention, I wouldn't have gone (and played) -- no way," Woods said. "I thought about going to the hospital. Like I told Elin last night: The problem is, it's so easy to check into a hospital, but getting out is the hard part. I didn't know if they were going to let me go, so I decided not to do that."

Woods received a winner's check of $810,000 for his discomfort. Since missing the first five tournaments of the year recuperating from Dec. 12 arthroscopic knee surgery, Woods has more than made up for lost time. With one more tournament -- The Players Championship in Ponte Vedra -- still left in March, Woods already has secured his fifth consecutive three-victory season.

"I'd like to eat what he's eating," said Jeff Maggert, a resident of The Woodlands who finished in a tie with the No. 2 player in the world, Ernie Els. If Els (77-288) and Maggert (77-288) had gotten two shots a side at Bay Hill, they still would have finished behind Woods.

"It was mind-boggling watching the way he played," said Stewart Cink, who played in Woods' group the last two days. Cink shot 70 and 72 in those two rounds to finish 8 under and in a second-place tie with Faxon (74), Kenny Perry (71) and Kirk Triplett (70). The victory margin broke the previous Bay Hill record of nine shots set by Fred Couples in 1992. It was the biggest landslide on the PGA Tour since Woods -- who else? -- won the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach by 15 strokes.

"It was a joke," Woods said. "I mean, just about every single tee shot hurt, because my abs were obviously sore from last night, and I continued on while I was playing today."

Pak's long par putt after hitting it in the water on the 17th hole kept her in the lead, and she finished with a tap-in birdie on the final hole for an 8-under 64 to win the Safeway Ping by a shot over Grace Park.

In his 42nd appearance on the Champions Tour, Davis finished at 16-under 197, making good on his prediction that it would take at least 15 under to win.

Dredge, the only top-100 player in the event, closed with a 1-under-par 71 for a total of 16-under 272.