Villegas romps to Honda Classic victory

Columbia’s Camilo Villegas scorched to victory at the Honda Classic after a final round 68 saw him win the tournament by five strokes from American Anthony Kim. The PGA National course had no answer to the powerful Columbian who smashed the previous winning total of nine-under par which was set by YE Yang in 2009.

Villegas and Kim had gone head-to-head in the tournament after sharing the lead at half-way but Villegas was by far the more consistent of the two throughout. Kim will doubtless be left wondering what might have been, after his third round 73 seemingly put him out of contention but the Ryder Cup star bounced back in the final round to emerge as the only likely threat to the Columbian.

Despite a nervy run-in which saw Villegas card back-to-back bogeys on the back nine, there was enough left in the tank to see off Kim and win his first PGA Tour event since 2008. Starting the final round three strokes ahead of the field, Villegas was six ahead by the 10th hole and coasting to victory. But those back-to-back bogeys and another on the 15th – the first of the ‘Bear Trap’ holes could have proved costly had Kim, or any of his rivals been closer to take advantage.

England’s Justin Rose finished in third place, a distant seven shots behind Villegas after shooting a final round 64. Vijay Singh and Rose’s countryman Paul Casey were a further shot behind and shared fourth place.

Rose’s third place gave the US-based Englishman some valuable world ranking points but remains some way off an automatic Ryder Cup place.

Villegas fired all four of his winning rounds below par – 66-66-67-68- and tee’d up at PGA National without a practice round after playing in a pro-am for the Bogota Open in his native Columbia – the first PGA sanctioned event to be held in the country – before arriving in Florida.

Villegas won $1.01million for his win, which puts him on top of the money list for the season, just ahead of Steve Stricker.

Villegas also climbed to twelfth place in the world rankings and a place in the world’s top 10 of golf looks assured before long.