220-yard tee shot nearest to the pin on Mid Ocean's 17th hole to break a three-way tie in the $1.8 million Gillette Tour Challenge yesterday.

Furyk, playing with veteran Lee Trevino and Michelle McGann from the LPGA Tour in the competition's unique best-ball format, put the ball 10 feet three inches from the hole to clinch the $450,000 first prize to be split with his team-mates.

His tee shot, the first among players from the three teams which had finished at 11-under to force the play-off, was closely challenged by Payne Stewart, whose ball stopped 15 feet short of the flag.

From the tee it was impossible to separate the two, but the measurements were taken and relayed back by radio, prompting a good-natured exchange of banter between the pair.

"It's gonna be a long flight back, Payne,'' joked Furyk, having effectively done his rival out of a little over $50,000.

"I'm walking home,'' responded Stewart who, with team-mates Annike Sorenstam and Jay Sigel, was forced to share second place with the threesome of Robert Gamez, Gil Morgan and Chris Johnson.

But it was just reward for Furyk, who is renowned as one of the most consistent players on the PGA Tour without ever setting the world alight. He's made the cut in 20 of his 23 tournaments this year, turned nine of those into top ten finishes and ended runner-up in two.

Yet in his six year pro career he has only experienced finishing top of the pile twice, at Las Vegas in 1995 and the Hawaiian Open a year later.

So while he may have been forced to share the money yesterday, it was nice to see him have most of the glory to himself.

"I liked it when it left the club,'' he said afterwards of his winning shot.

"But you never know -- there were a lot of good shots out there. Earlier in the day I was caught between using a three-iron and a five wood on that hole but I decided to go in with a hard three-iron and see how it worked out and I just hit a really good shot.'' Asked what he thought of a nearest the pin shoot-out to decide the title, he replied: "Now that we've won, I love it. But, seriously, if you went into a sudden death play-off with three-man teams you could have been out here for a while, so it was probably the only way to do it.'' Mind you, Furyk might not have had the chance for his last-ditch heroics had it not been for team-mate McGann.

She rolled in a birdie putt on the par-four 18th to lift the trio level with Gamez, Morgan and Johnson, who had finished a few moments earlier. And, in a great advert for the ladies game, it was Johnson, a member of the USA's winning Solheim Cup team, who had birdied on the final hole to put her side in pole position.

That fact was not lost on Furyk. "Michelle played super today,'' he said.

"We played a bit of junior golf together when we were growing up and she must have shot at least four birdies today. She held our team together and probably played the best of all of us.''M Stewart, Sorenstam and Sigel might have been cursing their luck for not sewing it up at the last. They were the only team at 11-under coming on to the 18th and all had tricky but not impossible putts for birdies that would have won them the championship outright.

Stewart, who'd been putting like a demon earlier, sinking from 30 feet for a birdie on the scenic par three seventh and joining Sigel with an eagle on the 15th, went closest, but the misses meant three teams would have to battle it out on the 17th.

For Sorenstam, the 27-year-old Swede who heads the LPGA money list, it was a case of deju vu -- she had flown in from Pennsylvania on Monday after losing out to Rachel Hetherington in a play-off at the Betsy King Classic.

However, she was far from frustrated with the result and was pleased with the way her team had complemented one another.

"I think you have to play your own game,'' she said, "but you try to help each other with things like the lines and the wind, because it was very gusty out here today.

"But to come in with a low score you can't all make birdie on the same hole.

We had two eagles on one hole -- which is great -- but you can only count one and other than that we all played well on different holes.'' There was just one note of controversy on a day that, despite decent sunshine, a wind strong enough to challenge the players and free admission, failed to bring out the crowds of a year ago.

That came on the second hole after senior Gil Morgan's ball landed on the cart path behind the green. He had to take a drop and a handful of Mid Ocean members questioned whether he had taken it from the correct place.

Morgan himself seemed genuinely nonplussed by the complaints which, if upheld by the rules committee, could have ruled him out of that hole.

But he won support from fellow player Gamez, who said: "I thought it was a good drop. It wasn't closer to the hole.'' In the event, Morgan was cleared and a tournament official said: "He checked with his fellow players and they would have told him if he was doing an illegal drop.'' Photos by David Skinner CHEQUE MATES -- Veteran Lee Trevino (centre) is bracketed by team-mates Michelle McGann and Jim Furyk after winning first prize in the Tour Challenge.