Through the tears, Stricker says this one is all about the trophy Aug. 26, 2007 Print this page By Melanie Hauser PGATOUR.com Contributor HARRISON, N.Y. -- We saw the tears coming before he did. Steve Stricker Steve Stricker was elated over his first victory in six years. (Mike Ehrmann/WireImage) INSIDE THE NUMBERS STRICKER IN 2007 Category Total Rank Driving Distance 282.8 yds. 144 Driving Accuracy 62.58% 99 Greens in Regulation 63.97% 87 Putts Per Round 28.51 12 Scoring Average 69.45 7 Sand Saves 46.36% 126 Money Leaders $3,868,077 6 FedExCup Points 104,950 1 ?Steve Stricker's Player Page Through all those stories of the lows. Of the nights he'd question if he'd ever make a cut again. Of all the hard work he put in during those cold Wisconsin winters, hitting balls out of a three-sided trailer with the heat blasting. Of the moments like that afternoon in Houston, when he finished third. And Winged Foot, where he tied for sixth at the U.S. Open. Of what, after that, we saw as couldas and he saw as building blocks. So when that final putt dropped Sunday afternoon at The Barclays, when the weight of not having won in six years was lifted off his shoulders, Steve Stricker turned into a mess. He sobbed on the 18th green with his caddie Tom Mitchell. He brushed away tears when Jerry Kelly waited around to congratulate him. And for the next hour his heart kept catching in his throat and the tears flowed every time he thought about how far he'd come or pictured his wife and kids back home. "I'm an emotional player as it is and I'm an emotional person,'' he said. "So, here we go again. It's hard. I don't know why, but it is.'' Stricker's win was as exquisite as they come. He took the lead Saturday night with a third-round 65 then gutted it out for the first 13 holes of the final round. He watched runner-up K.J. Choi -- his nemesis at the AT&T National a few months ago -- pour in a pair of birdies from 46 and 48 feet. He lost the lead. Then Stricker birdied four of the last five to put an exclamation point on his comeback with win on a course he swore he would never play again. Yes, that was back in 1995 when he finished tied for 60th and told his wife Nicki to take a picture as they were leaving. They wouldn't be back. Sunday, he was the picture. "It feels great,'' he said, drawing a laugh. "I don't know what else to say. But I tell you what, I've been waiting for this day for a long time. It feels really good.'' Stricker's comeback win capped a 14-month journey and started him on another one -- as the new FedExCup points leader. Yes, he knows who's coming back next week -- one Tiger Woods, who was the points leader coming into The Barclays -- but Sunday night, the standings or he fact that he's playing in the next three hardly mattered. It was all just icing on the cake. Sunday, it was all about the win. Until now, the roll since Winged Foot was paved with good finishes and a couple of close ones. His stats read two seconds, a tie for fourth, another for fifth, a tie for ninth at the Shell Houston Open and a tie for eighth at the Open Championship. The collection had earned him a spot on the U.S. Presidents Cup Team. The win means more. It's the first one since his 2001 World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play win in Australia; the first in the United States since the 1996 Motorola Western Open. Which meant more? That it was the second time this season he had stared down Choi in the final round? Or that Choi clipped him with a bunker shot on the 71st hole AT&T National? Truth is, it wouldn't have mattered who finished second. Although Choi's bombs did give him a flashback. RELATED ?Video: Round 4 Highlights ?Video: Shot of the Day ?Podcast: Analyzing The Barclays ?Numbers: Final Barclays Stats ?FedExCup: Updated Standings "I just had to pay attention to myself and I didn't really worry about what he was doing,'' Stricker said. "I just tried to stay focused on what I was doing and trying to do. I knew I was playing well enough throughout the day. Even though I wasn't scoring that well, I thought I was hitting well enough to maybe make a few birdies coming in, not obviously four out of the last five holes. "But I tried to stay as positive and upbeat and just waiting for my time.'' Ironically, the turning point came when Choi drained the 48-footer. Stricker hit a good iron shot in and two-putted. "I just said, 'I'm only down one,'" Stricker said. "At that point, I felt like it was just between him and I. "So I just felt like, you know, just stick to my guns and just keep doing the things that I've been doing. He hit a good shot at 16, and at that point I felt like I needed to get a little more aggressive with things, and I took a little more dead aim at that pin and I pulled it off, and then made a good putt. '' From 20 feet. Hit a 4-iron in. Then he went to 17, a hole he'd birdied the three previous days. He hit his 53-degree wedge to four feet. Choi got a good bounce out of the rough, but two-putted. Stricker, one of the best iron players in the game when he's dialed in, was up by one. And 18? A lob-wedge to 10 feet. He made it to win by two. "That was pretty special,'' he said. "I was hoping that I didn't have to make that to win, because I was having a hard time taking it back. "But it was such a relief, to tell you the truth. I've worked. I mean, every player out here wants to do this, wants to win. That's what we are all out here to do. You don't get in position that many times, and when you do, it's tough to pull it off." Especially when you're choking back the tears. You know he thought about those days when he had to ask for exemptions, when he was near the bottom of the barrel and forced to go back to q-school. The rebuilding of his swing and his confidence that led to being 2006 Comeback Player of the Year. But he was leaving them where they were -- in the past. "Yeah, they were little things, not a lot of huge things,'' he said. "But a lot of little things that I wanted to take care of and kind of address those situations. And it kind of filtered down into my mental outlook, too. "They kind of go hand and hand, and I wasn't giving myself the benefit of the doubt a lot of times. I was not thinking very positively before I even got up to hit a shot," he added. "So I tried to change all of those things, and slowly, you know, at the start of that 2006 season, and for me it seems like if I can get on a roll and get some confidence, I become a different player. And I think a lot of players are that way, but more so than for me, I guess. "I felt like once things got rolling, I could run with that. I still am." And those close calls we saw this year -- runner-up finishes at AT&T and the Wachovia Championship and a tie for eighth at the Open Championship? As we said earlier, they weren't negatives. "I didn't see them as disappointments,'' he said. "I think that's the first thing. I didn't see those as a negative deal. I thought that was another building block in what I was doing. Even though I didn't finish them off, you know, the way you're supposed to, I still felt like those were positive things for me. I was moving in the right direction.'' The win? He's proved before that one isn't enough. So be prepared. To see more of him. And, we figure, a few more tears.