2003 WGC-World Cup (With partner Trevor Immelman)

What Rory said about his victory
“It’s an honor to represent your country and to be able to participate in an event of this nature and of this stature. It’s great to win whether it is just a friendly match against one of your friends or a World Golf Championship event. We’re competitors and that’s what we like to do. It’s a great way to finish off the year for me and for Trevor.”

Key stats and moments

• Key round was the third-round 63 shot by the tandem when the average score was around par.
• Rory and Trevor had such a large lead (seven shots) that their final day goal was to shoot even par.
• Closed with a birdie and three pars to seal a four-shot victory.

Newspaper lead
No round at the Ocean Course can be considered a walk in the park, but nursing a seven-stroke lead certainly made the going a little easier for South Africa during Sunday’s final round of the World Cup.

Trevor Immelman and Rory Sabbatini put together a workmanlike 1-over-par 73 Sunday and won handily in the 49th World Cup. They finished the 72-hole tournament at 13-under 275, four strokes ahead of England, which vaulted from sixth to second with a closing 67.
- Tommy Braswell, Post and Courier

Golfweek lead
With a rapid-fire response Rory Sabbatini summed up what it would take to win the World Cup on the eve of the final round.

“I’d take 18 pars right now and run,” the affable South African said late Saturday.

Turns out, 13 pars were more than enough to lift Sabbatini and teammate Trevor Immelman to victory at the World Golf Championships event Nov. 17.

The U.S. tandem of Jim Furyk and Justin Leonard closed with 75, tied for a disappointing fifth and bolted Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course for a Transatlantic flight to South Africa for the Presidents Cup.

Sabbatini, on the other hand, headed out of town at a leisurely pace with nothing on his agenda more pressuring than yard work until the 2004 PGA TOUR season gets started early next year. Immelman has the Japan Golf Tour’s Dunlop Phoenix event next week followed by a far more important engagement Dec. 6 – his wedding.

Note to International Presidents Cup captain Gary Player – hope for an airline snafu that would keep Robert Allenby stuck in Japan, where he played last week’s Japan Golf Tour event, for a few days. Or, better yet, an impromptu Nickelback concert that breaks out at an English airport and forces Adam Scott to miss his connection to South Africa.

Anything that would give Player one more chance to right the biggest wrong in pro golf this year. Anything that gets Sabbatini and Immelman into the International team’s lineup when play gets underway Thursday at The Links Course at Fancourt Hotel and Country Club Estate in George, South Africa.
- Rex Hoggard