HUMBLE, Texas — Hunter Mahan shot a 1-under 71 on Sunday to win the Houston Open, edging Carl Pettersson by one stroke.
Mahan, who won the Match Play Championship in February, is the first two-time champion on the PGA Tour this year. The victory moved Mahan up to No. 4 in the world rankings, the first time he’s ever been the highest-ranked American.
Pettersson (71) finished with eight pars for his second runner-up finish this year. Third-round leader Louis Oosthuizen (75) was another shot back at 14 under.
Mahan began the day two shots behind Oosthuizen, who lost the lead with two double bogeys on his front nine.
The 29-year-old Mahan earned his fifth career victory. He has six top-25 finishes in seven starts this year.
Standing on the 18th tee with a one-stroke lead, Mahan confidently hit his tee shot down the middle of the fairway, then knocked his 203-yard approach to 21 feet. He gave caddie John Wood a high-five when the ball landed safely on the green.
“Absolutely awesome,” Wood said.
Defending champion Phil Mickelson (71), Keegan Bradley (71), Brian Davis (74) and Jeff Overton (68) all finished 12 under.
The tournament became the run-up event to the Masters in 2007, and Mahan will play at Augusta for the fifth straight year.
Three-time major champion Ernie Els finished 10 under and fell short in his bid to earn an automatic invitation to this week’s Masters. Els needed a victory to avoid missing Augusta for the first time since 1993.
“It’s not going to change my life, either way,” Els said. “I’ve played many out there. It’s one of those things.”
The Masters could still offer a special invitation to Els, like tournament officials did for Greg Norman in 2002.
Els has played well this year, earning top-five finishes at the Transitions and Bay Hill. But he said Sunday he would decline an invitation if he received one at the last minute.
“To go through all of this, and then get an invite, I wouldn’t take it,” he said. “They can keep it.”
KRAFT NABISCO CHAMPIONSHIP: Sun Young Yoo won the Kraft Nabisco Championship with an 18-foot birdie putt on the first playoff hole Sunday, earning her first major title after I.K. Kim missed a 1-foot putt on the final hole of regulation at Rancho Mirage, Calif.
Yoo won the LPGA Tour’s first major of the season with steady play down the stretch, but she got to make the traditional leap into Poppie’s Pond only after Kim’s mind-boggling miss on the same green minutes earlier.
Yoo, who earned her second career LPGA Tour victory, and Kim finished at 9 under, but Kim could have all but wrapped up her first major with the tap-in par putt. Kim might have struck the ball oddly, and it toured the lip of the cup before coming out on the same side it entered.
Kim’s unbelievable miss on the Dinah Shore course will go down in tournament lore after a thoroughly wacky final round in which five players held the lead.
Kim had been the most consistent contender amid those wild momentum swings, going bogey-free through 17 holes — until she made a mistake reminiscent of Scott Hoch’s missed 2-foot putt that would have won the 1989 Masters, and Doug Sanders’ miss on a 3-footer to win the 1970 British Open.
Kim and Yoo, both from South Korea, shot 69 in the final round.
Top-ranked Yani Tseng finished third at 8 under with a disappointing final-round 73. Even after blowing a Sunday lead at the Kraft Nabisco for the second straight year, the Taiwanese star had a chance to join the playoff on the 18th, but pushed a long birdie putt wide by an inch.
Defending champion Stacy Lewis closed strong with a 66 to finish in a four-way tie for fourth place with Amy Yang (69) and late leaders Karin Sjodin — who shot a 74 after entering the final round even with Tseng — and Hee Kyung Seo, who had a three-stroke lead on the back nine before bogeying her final four holes for a 71.