He doesn't win too often, and certainly not nearly as much as he should, but Davis Love picked familiar terrain on which to end his latest win drought.
In capturing the Pebble Beach Pro-Am for the second time in three years - closing with a spectacular approach shot which set up a birdie on the last to beat Tom Lehman by one stroke - the victory, the 15th of his career, also had consequences for Ireland's Padraig Harrington.
Harrington, who won't reappear on the European Tour until next week's Malaysian Open, was leapfrogged in the world rankings by Love: the American moved from 10th to eighth, and the Irishman slipped to ninth.
For Love, the win - which came after a closing round 68 for a finishing total of 14-under-par 274 - was long overdue. His previous success on the US Tour came in the same tournament in 2001 and, since then, he had gone 44 events and 24 months without claiming a winner's cheque. At least it wasn't as long a wait as the previous occasion. Prior to the 2001 win, he had gone 62 tournaments and 34 months between victories.
Love's reduced schedule in the past two years has been attributed to a combination of neck and back problems, but, after his win on Sunday, he confessed, "That's probably as nervous as I've ever been playing a round of golf."
Indeed, Love, who had started out with a two-stroke lead, had to hold his nerve over the closing stretch. He held a three-stroke lead over Lehman with six holes to play after a string of six birdies in eight holes, but Lehman made his own birdie blitz late-on and caught Love when the winner bogeyed the 16th, after putting his iron tee-shot into a bunker.
However, Love finished strongly and, on the famous finishing hole that has the Pacific Ocean lapping up to its fairway, he produced a four-iron approach from the middle of the fairway to 12 feet, and two-putted for a winning birdie.
Earlier, Love had used up some luck when his tee-shot on the par three 12th hit a photographer by the greenside and bounced back to four feet from the pin. He holed the birdie putt. In the end, that piece of good fortune was to prove crucial.
While Love was an overdue winner, Lehman has had to wait even longer. He has had only one win since his season's best performance in 1996, when he won the British Open and the US Tour Championship, but he remarked, "I feel like my game is the best it has been in a long time. I really am hitting the ball more like I used to. It became quite evident to me at the beginning of the season that if I start making a few putts, I'm going to be a factor in some tournaments this year."
While Love's win has meant a slip back in the world rankings for Harrington, Darren Clarke - who has been in the US for the past few days renewing his working relationship with coach Butch Harmon - aims to use this week's Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines in San Diego to kickstart a move back up the rankings.
Clarke, who has slipped to 26th in the world, plays three weeks in a row in America - the Buick Invitational, next week's Nissan Open in Los Angeles and then the Accenture world matchplay championship in La Costa - before returning to the European Tour.
Graeme McDowell, meanwhile, has failed to get into this week's event. Having missed the cut in Pebble Beach and the previous week's Bob Hope Classic, however, McDowell intends to remain on in the US in the hope of picking up some further invitations.
Des Smyth celebrates his 50th birthday tomorrow and wastes no time in making his debut on the Champions Tour (formerly US Seniors Tour).
Smyth, who won the qualifying school for the tour, makes his debut in the Ace Group Classic in Florida, where Hale Irwin is the defending champion.
On the European Tour, Paul McGinley - down to 119th in the world rankings - emerges from his winter hibernation a week earlier than planned to play in the Johnnie Walker Classic in Perth, where Peter Lawrie is the only other Irish representative.
Stephen Browne, Eamonn Brady and Danny Sugrue are entered for the Los Encinos Open in Central America on the European Challenge Tour.
