Not Quite Déjà Vu

Last year Imada missed making the AT&T Classic his first win when he lost in a playoff.

DULUTH, Ga. (AP) -- Ryudi Imada watched someone else go in the water this time.

Imada claimed his first PGA Tour victory Sunday, beating Kenny Perry in a playoff at the AT&T Classic after losing the same suburban Atlanta tournament a year ago on the 73rd hole.

The two finished regulation tied at 15-under 273, but Perry's ball wound up in the water on the first playoff hole even though his second shot easily cleared the pond in front of the green.

Unfortunately for Perry, he struck a pine tree behind the green about 10 feet up the trunk. The ball ricocheted straight back across the putting surface and didn't stop rolling into it was in the water, the gallery groaning in disbelief.

Imada, who drove into the rough, laid up with his second shot and two-putted for a winning par. After taking a drop, Perry nearly spun back his wedge into the cup, then missed a 12-footer which would have forced another extra hole. Imada stepped up and calmly knocked his ball straight in the cup from 4 feet for the victory.

Imada has been a runner-up three times on the PGA Tour, including twice already this season. A year ago, he got into a playoff with Zach Johnson at the TPC Sugarloaf, only to knock his second shot in the same pond that claimed Perry's ball.

Carlos Villegas shot a closing 66 but missed an eagle putt at the 72nd hole that would have gotten him in the playoff. He wound up one shot back at 274. Jonathan Byrd was two strokes behind in fourth, but no one outside of Perry was kicking himself as much as Parker McLachlin.

He appeared to be pulling away for his first PGA Tour win when he eagled out of a bunker at No. 13, giving him a three-stroke lead.

But the pressure of being in contention for the first time clearly got to McLachlin down the stretch. He bogeyed three of the last five holes to finish with a 67 and a 276 overall, three shots out of the playoff.

"You've got your nerves going," McLachlin conceded. "You're trying to steady yourself, but the wind is blowing so hard, it's hard to steady yourself."

That was never more apparent than at the final hole. McLachlin outdrove his two playing partners and was in virtually the same position as the two previous days, when he made eagle and birdie at the par-5 18th.

After Matt Kuchar and Dan Forsman both cleared the water from farther away, McLachlin stepped up to attempt the same with a hybrid.

But as he approached the ball sitting up on a high plateau, the wind suddenly shifted and started blowing right in his face. McLachlin hovered there for a good 5 minutes, first pulling a 3-wood from his bag, then switching to an iron for the lay-up.

The gallery down below began to grumble, then broke into full-scale heckling when they saw he was playing it safe.

McLachlin said he had no choice, but the move backfired. He wound up missing a long birdie putt, then lipped out a 3½-footer for par.

"I just wasn't set up right, so I had to take my medicine," McLachlin said of his decision. "I couldn't wait around 20 minutes to hit a shot," before adding with a grin, "though I tried to."

Charles Howell III went into the final round with a one-stroke lead, but he couldn't close it out for his third Tour win. The Augusta native struggled to a 74 and finished four shots back.

The final round began early after the forecast called for the chance of afternoon thunderstorms. The players went off from both the first and 10th tees, with the final groups getting on the course at 10:15 a.m.