By the time the wind and slick greens of Southern Hills finally caught up with Billy Mayfair at the Tour Championship, he had a big enough lead to hold on Sunday for the biggest payoff of the year.

Mayfair won the $3 million season-ending tournament by shooting a 3-over 73, giving him an even-par total of 280 over a course that yielded just one round below par Sunday and only 14 subpar rounds for the entire tournament.His three-stroke victory gave him $540,000. He finished second on the money list with $1,543,192, about $111,000 behind Greg Norman.

It was the first time even-par or worse had won a 72-hole PGA Tour event since 1981, when Bruce Lietzke won the Byron Nelson Classic at 1-over 281.

"I felt I could shoot a little over par and win," said Mayfair, who won the Western Open and had five other top 10 finishes this year. "But when you have the best players in the world out here, you never know. You just have to play the best you can and hope it's good enough."

PGA champion Steve Elkington missed a 3-foot par putt on the 18th hole that cost him $58,500. The bogey dropped him into a tie with Corey Pavin. Both shot 73 and finished the tournament 3-over, earning $265,500 each.

Scott Simpson, who shot 69, and PGA rookie Woody Austin were another stroke back.

Mayfair started the final round with a three-stroke lead. With the same southerly winds that produced high scores in the first round, par was at a premium and Mayfair would have had to falter badly for anyone to catch him.

And he had chances to do that early on. As his wife, Tammy, squeezed a small sand-filled rubber ball to ease her nerves, Mayfair saved par from 6 feet and 8 feet on the first two holes, then made another 4-footer for par on the fourth hole.

"I miss those two, it might have been a different day," Mayfair said.

He bogeyed the par-3 sixth hole by hitting his tee shot under a television platform, and his lead had slipped to two shots over Justin Leonard, who played the front nine in 2-under-par to get to even.

But Leonard bogeyed five straight holes on the back to fall out of contention, and Southern Hills never gave the rest of the field of the top 30 money-winners a chance to catch Mayfair.

Mayfair bogeyed the 15th when he drove into the rough short of the fairway bunker and had to punch out well short of the green.

Elkington hit his approach inches away for a birdie to get within three strokes, and he got within two shots when Mayfair again had trouble off the tee at No. 17 and took a bogey to fall back to even-par.

Pavin, the U.S. Open champion, never could make a move. He bogeyed both par-3s on the front by missing the green, and he missed a 12-foot birdie putt on the par-3 11th hole that seemed to be his last chance.

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He followed with a bogey on No. 12 to go to 3-over.

"I did everything I could to make birdies out there and it just didn't happen," Pavin said. "Billy just plugged along and didn't make mistakes. When you don't make mistakes, you're hard to catch."

Brad Bryant, who lost the lead with a double bogey on the 18th hole Saturday, was taken to the hospital early Sunday with a stomach ailment. He shot a 76 to finish 6-over, tied for seventh with Leonard.

Norman shot a 71 to tie for ninth, easily winning his third money title. Elkington won the Vardon Trophy for the lowest scoring average. Nick Price, who won the PGA Championship at Southern Hills last year, had led the Vardon Trophy standings before finishing 19-over.

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