Tiger Woods overcame an unusually error-ridden final round to claim the 77th win of his professional career in Miami.

In his final competitive outing before the US Masters, Woods, four ahead overnight, had a closing 73 to clinch victory in the CA World Championship for the third successive year and sixth time in eight attempts.

Six months after taking the title by eight at The Grove near Watford, the world number one this time won by only two from fellow American Brett Wetterich, but in truth it was far easier than that.

Since the World Golf Championship series started in 1999, Woods has now won 14 of the 26 he has played, earning almost £10million in the process. Nobody else has won more than two.

It was also his third successive victory on Doral’s Blue Monster course.

He was out in 35 with three birdies and two bogeys and six clear after he became the only player all day to find the green in two at the par-five 10th.

That two-putt birdie was followed by another three-putt bogey, however, and he dropped another shot on the 13th when he missed from seven feet.

Playing partner Wetterich shot himself in the foot by having bogey sixes at both the first and 12th, but when he birdied the 15th and 16th he did bring the gap down to three.

With the 18th such a dangerous hole he could have made things really interesting by holing a 10-footer at the 17th, but missed it.

As a result Woods was able to take an iron off the final tee and gave no thought to going for the green in two on the par four. But even then there was a chance of a three-stroke swing when Wetterich fired his second to eight feet.

Woods third was long and finished in a similar spot from which Mark Calcavecchia had earlier putted into the lake.

But Woods judged the pace much better and even with a bogey he was home and dry when Wetterich left his birdie attempt short.

With a 70 Sergio Garcia climbed into a tie for third on six under with Australians Geoff Ogilvy and Robert Allenby, whose 67 was the low round of the day, while Swede Niclas Fasth and England’s Paul Casey were one stroke further back.

Casey began the week under the weather and with a round of 76, so his comeback keeps his Masters hopes high.

“I’m making lots of birdies. I’ve just got to eliminate the mistakes,” he said.

Garcia is starting to look more confident even though he still has not won for over 18 months.

“Pretty good overall,” he said of a performance which included chipping in on the 15th just after playing partner Fasth had done the same.

Following his Saturday round Garcia had been questioned about spitting into one of the holes after he had three-putted.

“I just missed the putt and I wasn’t too happy,” he told a television reporter. “Don’t worry, it did go in the middle and wasn’t going to affect anyone else. If it did, I would have wiped it off.”

Newspaper journalists tried to follow up, but Garcia responded: “I just said it. I’m not going to repeat it.”

Collated final-round scores and totals (USA unless stated, par 72):

278 Tiger Woods 71 66 68 73

280 Brett Wetterich 72 70 67 71

282 Sergio Garcia (Spa) 71 70 71 70, Robert Allenby (Aus) 67 74 74 67, Geoff Ogilvy (Aus) 72 69 71 70

283 Aaron Baddeley (Aus) 69 71 71 72, Niclas Fasth (Swe) 72 70 70 71, Nick O’Hern (Aus) 72 72 66 73

284 Paul Casey (Eng) 76 70 66 72, Zach Johnson 72 68 73 71

285 Robert Karlsson (Swe) 74 74 68 69, Vijay Singh (Fij) 74 68 69 74, Ernie Els (Rsa) 70 70 71 74, Thomas Bjorn (Den) 68 72 71 74, Tom Pernice Jnr. 71 70 70 74

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