Posted on: Monday, January 17, 2005

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

His round finished and clinging precariously to a one-stroke lead while the only man who could win or force a playoff was still out on the course, Vijay Singh did not join the drama-seekers gathered around the 18th hole at Waialae Country Club yesterday.

Nor did he crowd around one of the television sets showing Shigeki Maruyama's last-gasp bid to pull out the win in the Sony Open in Hawai'i.

Instead, Singh, head down and seemingly all but oblivious to the theater being played out around him, was intently rolling putts on the putting green.

That portrait in purpose — while Maruyama came up 15-feet right of the eagle required to force a playoff — said all you needed to know about Singh and his steely focus on finally closing out a Sony championship by a stroke with a 65 good for an 11-under-par 269.

The No. 1-ranked player in the world was determined not to leave here again without the $864,000 first-prize check, even if it meant coming from four strokes back in the final round. Especially this year.

After playing well — five Top 20 finishes in nine appearances spanning the Sony and its predecessor, the Hawaiian Open — but no championship to show for it, Singh had ample reasons not to leave empty-handed again.

After leading the Mercedes Championships for three rounds only to be scuttled by a triple bogey in the final round last week, this first full-field event of the PGA Tour season was not one that he could let get away and not feel the pain.

If it came down to a playoff — the way the two previous Sony Opens had — the man who regularly wears a rut in the putting green was going to be primed to put this one away in his expanding trophy collection.

"I've played well here but never won it," Singh said. "I just could never put the finish on four solid rounds here. This week I wanted to hang in and do it."

Not just for the milestone 25th PGA Tour victory but to polish his standing as the No. 1 player and lighten some of the burden that comes with it.

"It (took) a lot of pressure off me," Singh said. "Everybody thinks, 'Is he going to win again?' I missed an opportunity last week. That could actually work against me if I (did) that again. I think this is going to help. It is a great relief, you know. I can start breathing again and go and play more comfortable for the rest of the season.

"I'm looking forward to the rest of it. I think I've calmed down now after last week and this was what I needed."

The sound of his size 11› footsteps moving steadily up the leaderboard was not what the rest of the field wanted, however. Not after he had dominated last year with nine Tour victories and nearly $11 million in earnings.

After being tied for 18th after the first round and 11th after the second in the Sony, Singh made his move from the sixth position, four strokes back, with five birdies and a bogey-less round of 5-under-par 65. So solid, so consistent was his march that, remarkably, only once in his final 43 holes did Singh sustain a bogey.

"A guy like that, with all that talent, does not go away," said Ernie Els, the two-time defending champion who came from eight strokes back to finish second.

And there would be no stunner like Isao Aoki's one-bounce eagle of 18 in 1983 from his countryman, Maruyama, to deny Singh, either.

Not this year and not here.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis

@honoluluadvertiser

.com or 525-8044.