Fiji's Vijay Singh took another step towards being hailed as one of the all-time golfing greats by winning his third major title on a play-off after one of his worst rounds in a major event.
Singh did not have a single birdie in a closing 76 in the United States PGA Championship at Whistling Straits and it will go down as the highest winning round in a major since Reg Whitcombe in the 1938 Open.
He was given a reprieve when Justin Leonard, needing to win to leap into America's Ryder Cup team, bogeyed the final hole and dropped back alongside not only Singh, but also Chris DiMarco on the eight-under-par mark of 280.
Leonard, Open champion at Troon in 1997, had himself managed only a 75, while DiMarco, chasing his first major, produced a one-under 71.
One month after Todd Hamilton and Ernie Els played four extra holes at Troon the trio went into a three-hole play-off and Singh struck straightaway, pitching to five feet on the 361-yard 10th and this time making it for his first birdie of the day.
He had a chance to go further in front, but missed from similar range at the short 17th after a brilliant tee shot.
Leonard and DiMarco, whose last-day charge gave him a Ryder Cup debut, parred both holes to keep their hopes alive, but unlike Singh they could not find the green at the last and Singh's two putts from 40 feet gave him the trophy again. He won at Sahalee in Seattle in 1998.
The victory, his fifth of the season, put Leonard out of an automatic Ryder Cup place and put Chris Riley in instead.
Riley feared a missed five-footer on the last had cost him, but with Leonard not winning his joint fourth place with Ernie Els was good enough. The players to be bumped off and left needing wild cards were Steve Flesch and 50-year-old Jay Haas.
Dubliner Paul McGinley leapt into a share of sixth place with a closing 69 - one of the low rounds of the day with the Wisconsin course playing much faster and tougher. It was a huge boost to his own Ryder Cup hopes, but there are still two weeks left in the European race.
Darren Clarke, joint third overnight, fell back to 13th with a 76 and was alongside Brian Davis (74).
Luke Donald and Padraig Harrington, both five under overnight and still in with an outside chance, were only 24th and 45th after rounds of 75 and 78 respectively.
Leonard was involved in a win-or-bust effort five years on from winning the match in Boston amid controversial scenes when team-mates celebrated prematurely after he sank a 45-foot putt on the 17th green at Brookline against Jose Maria Olazabal.
He came into this the final week of their race - Europe's players have two more to go - 30th in the standings, but he was handed the lead when the Fijian double-bogeyed the 493-yard par-four fourth after hitting a wild second into sand and then finding another bunker.
Singh dropped back to 10 under par and found himself two behind as Leonard had rolled in a 14-foot birdie putt at the short third.
Leonard then escaped from the long fifth with a par despite having to take a penalty drop from a hazard by the green, but was then caught by DiMarco making three birdies in four holes around the turn.
However, DiMarco then bogeyed the difficult 15th and Leonard rolled in a 14-foot birdie putt at the 13th.
Tiger Woods, meanwhile, had presented Els with a chance to end his five-year reign as world number one by finishing with a 73 for 24th spot. But Els had to finish second.
It was decision day for American Ryder Cup captain Hal Sutton.
While Bernhard Langer still has two more weeks to make up his mind on who to pick - he insists there are no guarantees for anybody, including Colin Montgomerie, yet - Sutton's two wild cards were being given the good news at the conclusion of the USPGA Championship.
The official announcement comes tomorrow, but the 46-year-old spent the final round waiting to see who made it into the top 10 of what for the United States has been a three-year race for automatic places.
In the European battle, Montgomerie did his hopes of climbing into the top 10 from his current 21st little or no good with a nine over aggregate - the worst of his PGA career - and David Howell and Ian Poulter, currently eighth and ninth, finished one over and level par.
The problem for those two - and Davis - is that they are not in next week's NEC World Championship, the penultimate counting event and one of the richest.