PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Tim Clark was good enough to win on three continents and play on three Presidents Cup teams. He was better than everyone but Phil Mickelson in the 2006 Masters.

Good enough to win on the PGA Tour? Clark was starting to wonder.

In more than eight years and 204 tournaments on golf's toughest circuit, he was a runner-up eight times but nothing more. The worst moment was last year at Colonial, where he missed two putts to win, in regulation and a playoff.

"There was a part of me that thought, 'Man, what have I been doing?' When you play that many tournaments, and when you have weeks where you feel like you've played well enough to win and you haven't, it gets a bit frustrating," Clark said. "You do start to wonder, 'When is it going to happen for me?'

"Luckily for me, this week I did play my best," he said. "That's about as good as I can play."

Regarded as one of the best players to have never won on the PGA Tour, Clark ended that conversation Sunday by beating the best field in golf at The Players Championship.

And he did it in style.

Trailing by seven shots going into the weekend, Clark set a TPC Sawgrass record with the largest 36-hole comeback, breaking by one the previous mark by Tiger Woods in 2001.

On a frightening Stadium Course that played its toughest in the final round — the greens were so firm they were brown — he didn't make a single bogey. The 34-year-old South African dropped only one shot on the weekend, and he played the final 26 holes at par or better.

The streak never mattered more than on the final hole.

Having survived the famous island-green 17th hole, Clark faced an 8-foot par putt on the 18th hole. He had a two-shot lead over Robert Allenby of Australia and Lee Westwood of England, but they still had three holes to play.