AWASH WITH GLEE ALLENBY WINS IT IN PLAYOFF.

Byline: Dave Shelburne Staff Writer

If it's a playoff, it must be Allenby.

Australian golfer Robert Allenby extended his remarkable string of overtime success Sunday by winning a seventh consecutive playoff. This time, he outlasted five others who tied at 8-under-par 276 to get in a rain-swept Nissan Open shootout that equaled the largest tiebreaker in PGA Tour history.

Not since the 1994 Byron Nelson Classic have so many participated in a playoff, and Allenby made short work of it.

His 223-yard 3-wood shot, to within six feet of the flagstick on No. 18, set up a birdie putt that eliminated Toshi Izawa, Brandel Chamblee, Bob Tway, Jeff Sluman and Dennis Paulson and ended a long,soggy day at Riviera Country Club.

``To be able to able to pull it off in those conditions, in pouring rain, with five other guys on your heels. . . . That would be definitely a shot that will stay in my memory for a long time.'' Allenby said.

The reigning Australian PGA champion might not have needed his dramatic finish had he only been able to par the 18th in regulation. Instead, he hit three shots into the rough before joining the playoff with an 8-foot bogey putt.

Allenby was merely following the example of another hard-luck playoff qualifier - Sluman, who also bogeyed 18, playing just ahead of the Aussie.

Paulson, playing in the final group, with third-round leader Davis Love III, also had a chance to win in regulation but needed a birdie, something only Paul Gow managed during Sunday's regular play.

Paulson took par to join the playoff - the last to join, it turned out, when Love, needing birdie to stay alive, took bogey.

Then it was on to the Aussie highlight reel.

After five of the six playoff participants hit the fairway on the OT drives, Allenby, hitting fourth on his second shot with no one yet on the green, elected to attack with caution.

``It was probably a 2-iron, but I knew at the same time that I couldn't (afford to) miss it.'' He said. ``I thought, well, I'll just choke down on a 3-wood and give that a hit and see what happens,'' he said.

He liked what he saw, and so did Aussie fans in a rain-soaked crowd surrounding the green on Riviera's difficult 18th, which had yielded just 21 birdies all week.

``I was trying to make birdie, trying to hit the perfect shot in there at the last, and I came up with it,'' Allenby said. ``I felt like I had nothing to lose and all to gain,'' and that's probably why I've won seven out of seven in playoffs.

He earned $612,000 for his third PGA Tour victory and 13th worldwide.

All three tour wins have come in OT, including playoff decisions at last year's Shell Houston Open (over Craig Stadler) and Advil Western Open (over Nick Price).

The nature of his Nissan victory left his playoff opponents more upbeat than discouraged.

Paulson, who lipped out a par putt on the extra hole, said he ``knew it didn't matter. (Allenby) wasn't going to miss that (birdie putt). No way, not after that great shot.''

``I played great and lost in a playoff,'' said Sluman, who caught leader Love early on Sunday and led or shared the lead most of the day. ``I thought I had a wonderful week.''

``I had a chance to win a golf tournament and that is what you try for,'' Tway said. ``So, overall, I'm pleased.''

The playoff overshadowed a long day of final-round drama, in which nine players held or shared the lead, including Love, Corey Pavin and alternate Michael Muehr, whose second-round 63 held up for the low score of the 75th annual event.

Love finished 75 to drop into a tie for eighth, Pavin slipped to 74 to fall into a tie for 20th in his best Nissan outing since winning the tournament in 1994 and '95, and Muehr finished tied for 13th after briefly sharing the lead with an eagle from the fringe on No. 10.

David Berganio, the former Alemany High standout and two-time U.S. Public Links champion, got within a shot of the lead at 8-under and finished with a 70 for a 6-under-par total of 278. That shared eighth place - his best ever in a PGA Tour event.

Also tied for eighth was Tiger Woods, the three-time tour player of the year and nine-time 2000 winner who shot 71 Sunday in failing to win for an eighth consecutive tournament.

``I haven't been very far off,'' Woods said after completing his round with six groups still on the course. ``Right now I would have been only four shots off (the lead). In the whole scheme of things, one shot a round is not that many strokes off. I'm close and I just need a couple of putts to go, a couple of breaks to happen.''

Love, who had won, then lost in a playoff, in his previous two tournaments, entered the Nissan as the tour's leading money-winner for the year. He led or shared the lead much of Sunday before stumbling on the final holes.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos, box

Photo: (1 -- cover -- color) SWINGIN' IN THE RAIN

Allenby, drenched but undeterred, emerges from record-tying six-man playoff to win Nissan Open.

(2) Robert Allenby is one happy guy after sinking a birdie putt to win a six-man playoff and the Nissan Open.

Tom Mendoza/Staff Photographer

(3) Dennis Paulson, who was one of the players involved in the six-man playoff, waits his turn to putt on No. 10.

Michael Caulfield/Associated Press

Box: PAST WINNERS