Worldwide Golf

CAMILO Villegas picked up his third PGA TOUR title with a commanding five-stroke victory over Anthony Kim at The Honda Classic in Florida.

The Colombian carded a final round 2-under-par 68 to ease to victory with a 13-under-par 267 total - the lowest 72-hole score since the tournament moved to the Jack Nicklaus designed PGA National in 2007.

“I’ve just had good vibes in me all week,” said Villegas, who climbed to No.12 on the Official World Golf Ranking with the win. “I’ve been working hard on my game and on my attitude and I’ve been excited about playing golf. Today I just kept plugging away. I kept hitting good shots. If there was a golf course where you can mess up coming in, it’s this one, trust me. The finishing holes are tough. And I just picked my targets, put good swings on them and took care of business.”

Villegas began the day with a three shot lead over Vijay Singh and Nathan Green and quickly extended his advantage with four birdies in his opening ten holes. However, he was pegged back by bogies on holes 11, 12 and 15 but with Singh and Green crumbling to a 2-over 72 and 7-over 77 respectively Villegas had an easy path to victory. He held a four-stroke lead heading down the last with Anthony Kim in the clubhouse on 8-under and wrapped up the win in emphatic fashion with a superb 16-foot birdie putt on the final hole.

England’s Justin Rose shot up the leaderboard with a superb tournament-record final round 6-under 64 to move up 20 places into third place with compatriot Paul Casey finishing in a tie for fourth place with Singh on 6-under-par.