So near yet so far: Tiger comes up short by a putt

PALM HARBOR, FLA. — A long victory drought on the PGA Tour finally ended Sunday — just not the one a raucous crowd was expecting. Paul Casey closed with a 6under 65 and won the Valspar Championship. But only after watching from the locker-room as Tiger Woods came up one putt short of forcing a playoff. It was the closest Woods has come to winning in nearly five years. Woods looked closer than ever to winning in his remarkable return from fusion surgery on his lower back last April. Each week has been a little better. He has been a factor on Sunday the last two tournaments, and a gallery that stood 10-deep around just about every green could sense it. He just couldn't deliver after a two-putt birdie on the par-5 opening hole. “I didn't feel that sharp with my iron game,” Woods said. “I played conservatively into the green because I wasn't as sharp as yesterday. It was one of those days I kept getting halfclubs.” Casey, who started the final round five shots behind, ran off three straight birdies early on the back nine at Innisbrook to take the lead, and he closed with four par saves to post at 10-under 274. No one caught him, giving him his second PGA Tour title and his first since the Houston Open in 2009. Patrick Reed was tied for the lead and appeared headed for a playoff at worst until his approach to the 18th came back down the slope, and his 45-foot birdie putt was so weak that it rolled all the way back to his feet . He three-putted for bogey and a 68. Woods and his massive following went dormant after an opening birdie to briefly share the lead. He went 15 holes without a birdie until he brought Innisbrook to life with a birdie putt from just inside 45 feet that died into the cup at the par-3 17th, leaving him one shot behind with one hole to play. Woods played conservatively with an iron off the 442-yard, uphill closing hole on the Copperhead course. From 185 yards, his approach came up some 40 feet short, and his birdie putt to force a playoff was 2 feet short. He closed with a 70 — the first time since The Barclays in 2013 that he posted all four rounds under par on the PGA Tour — and tied for second. That was his best finish since he tied for second at that Barclays tournament, right about the time his back started to give out. Casey had gone 132 starts on the PGA Tour since winning in Houston, though he had won five times worldwide.