on the SIDELINES

ATLANTA - Retief Goosen defied the odds at every turn Sunday in the Tour Championship.\nNo one makes birdie on the 481-yard 16th hole, especially not from the rough. Goosen smoked a 5-iron from 195 yards that dropped in front of the flag and stopped 3 feet away.\nAnd no one comes from four shots behind Tiger Woods in the final round to win.\n"We all thought he was going to be the guy to beat," Goosen said.\nIn a fitting finale to the PGA Tour season, Goosen was unflappable as ever in closing with a bogey-free 64 to win the Tour Championship by four shots and become only the third player to overtake Woods in the final round.\nIt was the best final round by a winner in the 18-year history of the tournament.\n"He did absolutely everything he needed to do -- posted a number, and hopefully it would be good enough," Woods said. "And it was."\nWoods and Jay Haas helped the cause.\nIn a rare collapse, Woods bogeyed three of his first seven holes to give the rest of the field hope. Then, he couldn't keep up with Goosen down the stretch and closed with a 2-over 72 to finish second.\nHaas, at 50 the oldest player ever in the Tour Championship, stumbled down the stretch and shot 75. He now has gone 277 events and 11 years since his last PGA Tour victory.\nGoosen finished at 11-under 269 and earned $1.08 million, a sweet way to finish a year in which he won the U.S. Open for the second time, missed five weeks after injuring his ribs on a jet ski, and wound up with his first multiple-win season on the PGA Tour.\nAnd he ends the year with a shot to remember -- a 5-iron from the rough for the only birdie Sunday at No. 16.\n"It's just one of those shots that came off at the right time, and possibly it won the tournament for me," Goosen said. "I wasn't trying to hit it dead at the flag, just a touch left. But those things happen"