Rose blooms as others wilt

DORAL, Fla. — Justin Rose expected a moment like this, posing on the 18th green of the Blue Monster at Doral with a World Golf Championship trophy in his hands. It’s the rest of the script that made Sunday so surprising.

The biggest charge came from Rory Mcilroy, eight shots behind until he crept within one of the lead late in the round. Bubba Watson went from a collapse on the front nine, when he lost his three-shot lead in four holes, to a missed birdie putt that could have tied the lead. McIlroy finished another stroke back in third.

Tiger Woods started the day at 9 under, eight shots behind third-round leader Watson, withdrew after 11 holes. He was 6 under for the tournament when he stopped playing.

All that drama, and Rose

didn’t realize he had won until he was on the practice range and heard nothing.

Rose closed with a 2-under-par 70 to win the Cadillac Championship.

“I’ve been very focused on seeing this whole Florida swing as like a body of work, and not really trying to put too much focus on any individual tournament,” he said. “I kind of knew I was playing well, and if I just kept out of my own way for the most part and kept thinking well and doing the right things, I had a feeling something good might happen.”

Rose had to make up a three-shot deficit on Watson at the start of the round, and when he made the turn, he found himself two shots behind PGA champion Keegan Bradley, who then shot 41 on the back nine.

Rose seized control with a 52-degree wedge that settled to within 5 feet for a birdie on the 14th that gave him a twoshot lead. He closed with a bogey from the back bunker on the 18th, but not before watching his sand shot roll off the green and trickle toward the water, though never in serious danger of going in.

“It was all about controlling what I could control,” said Rose, who finished at 16-under 272 and earned $1.4 million. “I kind of knew I got into the lead — it’s hard to ignore it out there. And from there, I knew it was just a matter of closing it out.”

Watson didn’t hit a fairway on the front nine and shot 39. He bounced back with birdies on Nos. 11 and 12, and gave himself an unlikely chance at a playoff with a 4-iron out of the palm trees to 9 feet from the cup on the 18th.

“That’s the kind of thing Bubba does,” Rose said. “He can look out of position on a hole and just hit sort of a miraculous shot.”

Watson was in the water twice, once in a canal on the fifth hole that was hard to reach.