Sergio Garcia has put another final-day heartbreak behind him and is already looking forward to a big run in the FedEx Cup over the next month.
Two weeks on from his last-day setback in the USPGA Championship, when he lost a final-round lead to the superb putting of Padraig Harrington, Garcia lost out in a sudden-death play-off at The Barclays to Vijay Singh.
Garcia thought he had won the tournament for a third time in his career when he sank a 27-foot putt at the first extra hole, the 18th, at New Jersey's Ridgewood Country Club.
Then he watched as Singh shed his image as a dodgy putter by matching the Spaniard from 26 feet and taking the play-off to another hole, the 17th, from which the Fijian rolled a 20-footer to within inches to seal victory.
Despite a second runner-up finish in as many starts, Garcia refused to be downbeat.
"Well, it happens," he said.
"What can you do? You can't take it the wrong way.
"I think the most important thing about it is that I keep putting myself in a good position, and unfortunately somebody just seems to be able to come up with some spectacular playing when I'm out there on top.
"I hit a great putt, it just snuck in on the left side, and I knew at that time that obviously Vijay still had to putt, but I had a chance, and for sure, I wasn't going to be out of the play-off.
"I knew it had a chance. I mean, if he's 10 feet away, you know that he's probably going to make it.
"Obviously he still had a shot at it. The same way I made it, he can do it. And he did.
"And then he followed it unbelievably, holed that putt after I did, and then he just played a really solid 17th hole. You know, again, he did it in regulation and he played it pretty much exactly the same way in the play-off.
"So unfortunately it just didn't work out. He just hit two great shots on 17."
Just as he had done in defeat to Harrington at Oakland Hills in the USPGA, Garcia said he was happy with his game.
"I felt like I played solid all week. I got a couple of bad breaks here and there that maybe would have made the difference, and a couple of good ones here and there, too," he said.
"At the end of the day, I had a shot. That's what you ask yourself for, and Vijay just came out with the goods and you've just got to give hats off to him."
One of the upsides for Garcia is that he moved to second place in the FedEx Cup points standings, behind Singh, ahead of this Friday's Deutsche Bank Championship at TPC Boston.
With only the top 70 in the standings advancing from the second FedEx Cup play-off to the third, the BMW Championship, Garcia is set fair to advance to the finale, the 30-man Tour Championship and a shot at the US$10million (almost Ј5.4million) bonus for the season-ending points leader.
"I'm looking forward to it," Garcia said.
"Obviously this was a good start. Not the perfect start, obviously, but it was a very good start.
"I'm looking forward to keeping moving in the right direction, keep giving myself chances in the next two weeks, and then get ready for the Ryder Cup and see if we can have a good Tour Championship and at least have a chance at winning the FedExCup."
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