I was happy to make a smart play and have it pay off, and you wonder why you made a smart choice. – Geoff Ogilvy”

The matter of fact is that it’s the first tournament of the season. Previously entitled the Mercedes- Benz Championship or prior to that it was called the Tournament of the Champions, a special event to honor all winners of the year before, it is now and will be dubbed as the SBS Championship for the next 10 years. The new sponsor, SBS is the first Korean company to ever host PGA Tour Tournaments.

With so many up and coming Korean players, especially in the Ladies and Amateur sections, the Asian power house will likely make it to the top of the board. And with the presence of Y.E. “Tiger Slayer” Yang, who defeated Tiger Woods in that very memorable 2009 PGA Championship, the world will see more of them. Unfortunately Y.E. could not do much in this event. He finished 19th and 11 strokes behind the back-to-back winner, Aussie’s smart player Geoff Ogilvy.

The 32-year old Australian and former US Open winner, Ogilvy had managed to win his second title after his first one last year. Joining fellow Australian Stuart Appleby as the only repeat winners since this tournament moved to Kapalua in 1999, and he became only the 7th player in the 58 years of this winners-only tournament to win in consecutive years. Appleby was the only other three-year-in-arow winner after Gene Littler did it from 1955 through 1957. Stuart Appleby had the crowns from 2004 through 2006.

In a tournament where only winners could participate, Geoff Ogilvy had managed to top all 28 out of 31 winners in 2009, namely Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Henrik Stenson. The latter was not eligible, since he did not join the PGA Tour and continued to be member of European PGA Tour, instead. Stenson feels that the plans with his worldwide stretch would somehow be limited if he needs to play 15 times in US soil.

Ogilvy’s feat was not without strain. He started the final round trailing one stroke behind the third round leader, Lucas Glover who could not keep his advantage after a string of bad shots, including two double bogeys. US Open winner, Glover carded a 76 to finish at 14th place.

At the turn, the Aussie was trailing another player, the 2009 HP Byron Nelson Championship winner, Rory Sabbatini who surged to the top of the leaderboard

and the clubhouse leader at 21 under for the tournament. Sabbatini had a string of 5 birdies from 11th through the 15th holes. And made a birdie on the 17th and a par on the finishing hole for a 63 and 271.

Reflecting on his 5 birdies in a row, Sabbatini mentioned that the 11th was a bigger one with tough pin tucked left with a left-to-right wind. The birdie gave him a kind of jump start for a good string of birdies. But the key hole was 13. He said, “13 is always an interesting par-4. It can make or break a round out there. I made a good 20 foot putt. Sometimes you get one or two He even kidded with his wife, the night before the final round, and said, “Jokingly I said to my wife last I was going to come out today and shoot 10-under today and see what happens.” Sabbatini’s second place in the tournament also gave him a full 300 points for the FedExCup chase and brought his position from number 65 to 43 in the World Rank.

Back to the course, Ogilvy still had plenty of holes in front of him. At the 13th he was 20-under for the tournament, while Sabbatini at the clubhouse was waiting for his fate to unfold.

But Ogilvy was playing smart, rather than trying hard. Ogilvy knew with seven holes left to play that he needed to make birdies to catch and pass Sabbatini. Ogilvy’s fortunes turned on a course management decision at the 14th hole that could easily have been second-guessed.

On a short par-4 that more than half the field took a shot at driving the green, Ogilvy opted to lay up to 65 yards. He left himself an uphill approach to a tucked pin and wedged his next shot to within 5 feet and made the putt to tie Sabbatini.

And he took the outright lead with a 5-wood into 25 feet for a two-putt birdie on the 15th. The rest of remaining 3 holes he continued to play smart and did not try to fight the Kona winds, and he was just riding on them, so to say. And finished the tournament at 22-under or 270.

One of the characteristics of the Plantation Course, Kapalua on Maui is the Kona Winds, which could change directions at odd times. Blowing up to 32 kph, it makes scoring much more difficult. However, the players that have experienced the course under these conditions still scored well.

As a rule of thumb, every 1.5 kph of wind will affect the ball flight by a meter. And players with great patience plus the ability to judge the wind properly by taking their time with their pre-shot routines.

And talking about the winds, the third placer and fall series winner, Matt Kuchar who finished with 67 for 273, had mentioned the 4 different winds on 4 different days gave him some kind of a test. He said, “The golf course changes every day and out here it really changes every day. I hit driver, 3-wood into one. On the first day, I think I hit driver, pitching wedge. It’s the craziest thing.”

But then the winner was the guy who could outsmart the condition. And that’s just what Ogilvy did. Ogilvy was saying, “I was happy to make a smart play and have it pay off, and you wonder why you made a smart choice.”

With that remarks, the Kona Conqueror took the first full 500 FedExCup points. This 7th win on the Tour also placed him from number 14th to World Number Nine position.