SHANGHAI — Thousands of fans caused a bottleneck at the entrance to the HSBC Champions, all of them eager to see the Sunday showdown at Sheshan International between Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods.

Woods turned out to be merely a spectator, too.

Mickelson built a six-shot lead over the world's No. 1 player on the front nine, then rallied to beat Ernie Els with two clutch putts for a one-shot victory in the final World Golf Championship of the year.

Mickelson closed with a 3-under 69 and won for the first time playing with Woods in the final group.

Even with Woods out of the picture — he shot 72 and wound up five shots behind — Mickelson provided his usual dose of entertainment.

Trailing by one shot, Mickelson whiffed on a risky flop shot below the 16th green, only to save par with perhaps his best putt of the year, an 18-foot slider that dropped on its final turn. He followed that with a 10-foot birdie on the 17th, which turned out to be the difference when Els hit into the water on the par-5 18th and made bogey.

"We all expected that Tiger and myself would be shooting in the mid-60s and pull away a little bit," Mickelson said. "And yet, our group was not making any birdies. It was the groups in front of us. And I was very fortunate to come out on top by a shot."

Woods looked out of sorts from the start, missing birdie putts of 4 feet and 10 feet, then taking double bogey on the par-3 fourth when he hit into a canal left of the green.

"Anything that could go wrong went wrong for me today," Woods said. "Just one of those days."

Mickelson finished at 17-under 271 and earned $1.2 million for his fourth victory of the year.

Els put together a stunning charge, going out in 30 to pull within one shot and taking the outright lead with a birdie on the par-5 14th. He was on the verge of a course record and his first victory in nearly 20 months, leading by one with his tee shot smashed down the middle of the 18th fairway.

His was 218 yards away, his ball on a downslope. Els opted to hit a high cut with his 5-wood and "basically duffed it."

It landed in the middle of the pond.

LPGA

SONG WINS FIRST

South Korea's Bo Bae Song won the Mizuno Classic yesterday for her first LPGA Tour title, closing with a 4-under 68 for a three-stroke victory over top-ranked Lorena Ochoa, Brittany Lang and Hee Young Park at Shima, Japan.

Song, 23, finished at 15-under 201 at Kintetsu Kashikojima and earned $210,000 in the event co-sanctioned by the Japan LPGA.

Ochoa shot a bogey-free 64, and Lang and Park had 68s.