Lower Old Glory to half-staff, if you must, at country clubs across America to mourn yesterday's first foreign sweep of golf's major championships. But in doing so, don't neglect to raise a toast to the most dominant player on the planet.

Nick Price firmly reinforced his status as the game's best player in yesterday's final round of the 76th PGA Championship. He shot a final round of 3-under-par 67 at Southern Hills Country Club to rewrite several scoring records and wrap up his sixth victory on three different professional tours this season.In no particular order, the Zimbabwe native and Orlando, Fla., resident:

Lowered the 72-hole scoring record at the PGA Championship to 269 (11 under), breaking Bobby Nichols' 30-year-old mark by two strokes.

Dusted runner-up Corey Pavin by six shots, the most lopsided triumph on the Professional Golfers' Association Tour this season and one short of Jack Nicklaus' record winning margin at the PGA Championship (seven strokes, 1980).

Became the first golfer to win back-to-back majors in the same year since Tom Watson in 1982 and the first since Walter Hagen in 1924 to win the British Open and PGA Championship in the same year.

Won his 16th tournament worldwide in the past 24 months, upping his earnings total in that time to $5,569,058.

Took over the No. 1 spot in the World Rankings for the first time in his career.

"I think the rankings are right. Deep inside, I've always wanted to be No. 1. The way I've played the last month and a half, I'd say I've earned it," said Price, 37, who is the only repeat winner at a PGA Tour event in 1994.

Price gets no arguments from his peers. Yesterday's triumph was his fourth in the United States this season, along with last month's British Open and a victory in South Africa in January.

But this victory was so complete, so dominant, that Pavin confessed he began playing for second place "fairly early . . . about the 12th hole."

"Nick made it very difficult to even have hope out there," Pavin said. "I feel like I won the `B' flight. In this tournament, it was Nick and everyone else."

Price, reigning champion of the Colonial, began the day with a three-shot lead on his closest competitor. By the time he drained his third birdie putt of the front nine, at the eighth green, Price led by six and coasted home from there.

He termed his front-nine effort of 3-under 32 "the best nine holes of my entire life. I had everything to lose and everyone was saying, `You're playing so well. Who's going to finish second?' I was nervous, but that (front nine) settled me down."

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Price was helped by the fact that Pavin never charged, logging 17 pars and one birdie. Jay Haas, Price's final-round playing partner, fell off the leader board with a double bogey and two bogeys in his first six holes and limped in with a 75. Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson failed to break par.

Despite not being pushed, Price came within a stroke of shooting the lowest round of the day at Southern Hills for the third time in four rounds. He made his sixth - and final - birdie of the day at the par-4 16th, assuring his status as the sixth wire-to-wire winner in PGA Championship history.

Watson, whose back-to-back majors in 1982 included the U.S. and British Opens, suggested Price is operating with a different mind-set than his PGA peers these days.

"I know the feeling. You think you should win every tournament you enter. The hole looks bigger and your shots just seem to hit fairways and greens," Watson said. "Nick has that working for him."

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