Camilo Villegas stormed from five strokes behind in the final round before beating Sergio Garcia in a play-off for the Tour Championship on Sunday. Villegas compiled five birdies in six holes from the eighth on his way to a closing four-under-par 66 at East Lake.
Garcia's final round 71 left both players on seven under par, one stroke ahead of American duo Phil Mickelson (69) and Anthony Kim (69) in an exciting finish.
Villegas subsequently won with a par at the first extra hole, the par-three 18th, after Garcia sprayed his tee shot right of the green and could not get up and down.
"I'm proud of myself. I cannot emphasis how hard I've worked," Villegas said.
A disappointed Garcia added: "I just didn't play well enough today. I just wasn't myself.
"I had a hard time trusting myself although I managed to do it a little bit later in the round."
Villegas, 26, who also won the BMW Championship three weeks ago, is the first player in 11 years to post his first two PGA Tour victories in consecutive starts.
But the defeat was the latest in a growing line of disappointments for Garcia, who was pipped to the USPGA Championship in August by Padraig Harrington, the same player who beat him in a play-off for the Open Championship in 2007.
Garcia, who was hoping to become the first player since 1990 to win the Players Championship and Tour Championship in the same year, also lost a play-off to Vijay Singh at the Barclays Championship five weeks ago.
After starting the day with a three-shot cushion over his nearest rivals, he drove the ball poorly early in the final round, running up three bogeys in 10 holes to surrender the lead.
Garcia fought back with birdies the 12th and 16th and was back in front when Villegas bogeyed the 16th.
But Villegas made amends at the tough par-four 17th, sticking his approach shot to 11 feet and sinking the putt.
They both made pars at the last and when Mickelson and Kim missed their birdie putts, it was down to two.
Villegas found the back of the green at the first extra hole, 45 feet above the hole, from where he hit a nice putt to two feet and holed out.
Garcia, whose second shot came up short in the fringe, subsequently mis-hit his par attempt, coming up well short, and it was all over.
The win lifted Villegas 10 places to a career-high seventh in the latest world rankings.
Padraig Harrington remains the leading European player in fourth place while Graeme McDowell is the next best Irish player at 34th.
Latest World Rrankings:
1 Tiger Woods 16.00pts, 2 Phil Mickelson 9.06, 3 Vijay Singh 7.59, 4 Padraig Harrington 7.47, 5 Sergio Garcia 7.23, 6 Anthony Kim 5.33, 7 Camilo Villegas 5.31, 8 Ernie Els 5.29, 9 Henrik Stenson 5.25, 10 Jim Furyk 5.12
11 Steve Stricker 4.97, 12 Lee Westwood 4.96, 13 Stewart Cink 4.77, 14 Justin Rose 4.64, 15 Adam Scott 4.59, 16 KJ Choi 4.53, 17 Geoff Ogilvy 4.49, 18 Robert Karlsson 4.31, 19 Miguel Angel Jimenez 4.18, 20 Kenny Perry 4.13
Other leading Europeans:
25 Luke Donald, 28 Ian Poulter, 34 Graeme McDowell, 38 Paul Casey, 41 Martin Kaymer, 43 Soren Hansen, 46 Ross Fisher, 49 Carl Pettersson, 50 Oliver Wilson, 57 Peter Hanson, 62 Darren Clarke, 64 Nick Dougherty, 71 Niclas Fasth, 73 Anders Hansen, 87 Gregory Havret, 91 Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano, 92 Paul McGinley, 93 Alastair Forsyth, 95 Soren Kjeldsen, 100 Colin Montgomerie
