Woods closes season with a win

Tiger Woods

won the final golf tournament of the year yesterday, closing with a 4-under 68 to match the tournament record at the Target World Challenge in Thousand Oaks, Calif., and set a record for the largest margin of victory, by seven shots over Masters champion

Zach Johnson.

Woods had not played since Sept. 30 at the Presidents Cup, but he didn't show much rust in winning his tournament for the fourth time and becoming the first player to win in consecutive years.

"Doesn't help us, does it?" Colin Montgomerie said of Woods' long break. "If he took a bloody year off, it would help. Never mind 10 weeks."

Johnson closed with a 68, but the only challenge came from Jim Furyk.

Furyk got within two shots after nine holes, but the tournament changed abruptly on the 10th. Woods holed a 12-foot birdie putt, and Furyk three-putted for bogey from 4 feet on a downhill putt.

Woods finished at 22-under 266, tying the tournament record first set by Davis Love III in 2000. He earned $1.35 million, which he will donate to his Tiger Woods Foundation.

In other tournaments:

* Annika Sorenstam won the Dubai Ladies Masters by two strokes in her first victory since she won there in 2006. The Swede closed with 2-under 70 to finish at 10-under 278 at the season-ending tournament of the Ladies European Tour.

* Craig Parry made a 15-foot par putt on the 17th hole to shoot a 3-under 69 for a one-stroke victory at the Australian Open in Sydney.

* James Kingston shot a 1-under 71 to beat Oliver Wilson by one stroke at the South African Open in Paarl.

* Kikkan Randall became the first U.S. woman and second American to win a World Cup cross country race when she defeated world sprint champion Astrid Jacobsen, of Norway, in the final meters of a 1.2-kilometer freestyle in Demino, Russia. Randall is the first American to win a World Cup cross country race since Bill Koch in 1983. She finished in 2 minutes, 48.7 seconds - 0.7 seconds ahead of Jacobsen.

* German speedskater Jenny Wolf broke her own world record in the women's 100 meters with a time of 10.22 seconds at a World Cup race in Erfurt, Germany. Wolf also won two 500-meter races at the World Cup over the weekend.

* Finland's Kalle Palander got his third career giant slalom victory on the Gran Risa course in Alta Badia, Italy, and American Ted Ligety skied the fastest second run to finish fifth.

* Alexandr Zubkov, of Russia, drove his sled to victory in the four-man World Cup bobsled race in Lake Placid, N.Y., a year and a day after crashing on the course at the Olympic Sports Complex.

* Defending World Cup champion Armin Zoeggeler won a luge World Cup race in Igls, Austria, for his second win of the season.

* Megan Hodge made 26 kills and Nicole Fawcett 19 as third-seeded Penn State (34-2) defeated top-seeded Stanford, 3-2, for the NCAA volleyball championship on Saturday in Sacramento, Calif. It was Penn State's second national championship; the Nittany Lions also defeated Stanford in 1999.

* Australian Danny Green scored a unanimous decision over Stipe Drews for the Croatian's WBA light-heavyweight title in Perth, Australia.

* The Arena Bowl, which came to New Orleans last summer as part of the Arena Football League's efforts to help the city recover from Hurricane Katrina, is returning next summer.

* Sweden set a world record of 1 minute, 24.19 seconds in the men's 4 x 50-meter freestyle relay at the European Short Course Swimming Championships in Debrecen, Hungary. *