LOS ANGELES -- Another streak is over on the PGA Tour.
Kirk Triplett might never know what it's like to win six straight tournaments, an incredible run by Tiger Woods that ended a week ago in San Diego. But the pressure of going 11 years and 266 tournaments without a single victory gnawed at him every week."It's not as good of a career if you don't win," he said.
On Sunday, a journey that began on the "miniest of minitours" and dragged through an entire decade suddenly got a whole lot better.
Triplett won the Nissan Open at Riviera Country Club by building a 3-shot lead early on the back nine and fighting off his emotions, not to mention a few errant shots, for a 1-stroke victory over Jesper Parnevik.
"An incredible feeling," said Triplett, who closed with a 4-under 67 for 272. "This has been a long time coming."
Triplett had been a runner-up five times but was never in the lead on the back nine on a Sunday. That changed on a wet, gloomy day at Riviera.
While Woods and David Duval, playing together in the final round for the first time, failed to mount any semblance of a charge, Triplett birdied five of his first 10 holes. With every hole, he ventured further into foreign territory and tried to stay out of the way.
He had never held the lead after 12 holes on the final day, he kept telling himself.
Then it was 13 holes.
Then 14.
"And we made it to 18 -- finally," he said.
It wasn't exactly smooth sailing at the end. With a 2-stroke lead walking to the 18th, Triplett pulled his drive on the 451-yard closing hole into the rough and had to lay up 61 yards short of a pin cut to the back left of the green. Parnevik applied the pressure with an approach to 25 feet.
"I knew it was going to be rocky coming in, and it was," Triplett said.
Still, he answered the challenge with a lofted chip that settled 4 feet behind the hole, which must have looked like a mile after Parnevik rammed home his birdie putt.
"I don't know if the putt got longer," Triplett said, "but the hole sure got smaller."
Four feet from victory, Triplett told himself to give it a good stroke and saw it disappear. He thrust his fist into the gray sky, closed his eyes and smiled wide under his bucket hat.
He earned $558,000, more than he won in all but two of his previous seasons on tour.
Parnevik birdied two of the last three holes for a 68 that left him one stroke behind. Robin Freeman, who provided the stiffest challenge to Triplett until a three-putt bogey on the 17th, was another stroke back after a 68.
"I was hoping he would make the putt," Parnevik said. "But in the back of my head I'm shouting, 'No, you want to be in a playoff.' Anyone who knows him, he's just a nice guy. This must be a huge relief. I'm very happy for him."
A week after the end of The Streak, Woods failed to record a top-10 finish in a stroke-play tournament for the first time since he tied for 18th in the MCI Classic on April 18, a stretch of 13 PGA Tour events.
Woods got within two shots of the lead at one point early in the round, but closed with a 1-over 72 and finished in a tie for 19th. It was only the fifth time in his last 36 rounds on the PGA Tour that he failed to break par, dating to the British Open at Carnoustie.
"It's just a bad round," Woods said. "I didn't really have it going this entire week. If I would have putted a little better, I would have been right there. But you can't have everything."
Woods fell out of contention with three straight bogeys starting on No. 7 and was never really a factor. Neither was Duval, who closed with a 3-over 74.
The top two players in the world headed down to La Costa today for the Match Play Championship, the first of the three $5 million World Golf Championship events for the top 64 players in the world.
GTE CLASSIC: At Lutz, Fla., Bruce Fleisher won his ninth Senior PGA Tour title in just over a year Sunday, closing with a 2-under-par 69 for a four-stroke victory in the GTE Classic.
Dana Quigley (68) was second at 204.