Matt Kuchar celebrates his victory with wife Sybi and sons, in Paramus, on Sunday. (AFP)

Paramus: Tiger Woods saw the Barclays as a tournament he could have won, had his putter not betrayed him for the middle two rounds. The young Scotsman Martin Laird had no such problems, and he entered the final round with a three-stroke lead in large part because of his acumen on the greens.

But as with Woods, the greens brought about Laird’s undoing. Laird three-putted No. 18 on Sunday to fall into a sudden-death play-off with Matt Kuchar, who was in the clubhouse after climbing the leader board on a scorching afternoon at Ridgewood Country Club.

Unlike Laird, Kuchar did not miss a putt when it mattered most. Both players landed in the rough after their tee shots on a repeat of the 18th hole, but Kuchar escaped from it more ably. His 7-iron shot from left of the fairway did a U-turn on the green to set up a 30-inch tournament-winning birdie.

Heading into the Barclays, Kuchar led the PGA Tour with nine top-10 finishes this year — none of them a victory. “I knew it was a matter of time,” said Kuchar, who shot a five-under-par 66 to finish at 12-under 272. “It was one of those things that I knew if I put myself in contention enough times I was going to break through.”

Steve Stricker put together a bogey-free round of 66 to climb into a tie for third place with the tournament’s hometown hero, Kevin Streelman, whose parents used to live in nearby Glen Rock. Woods, who shared the lead after the first round but imploded on the back nine Friday and did little better Saturday, was sharper on the greens Sunday, shooting a four-under 67 and tying for 12th place.

Kuchar, 32, entered the day five strokes off the lead and needed some help from the golfers in front of him to be able to contend for the tournament. The two youngsters tied for second heading into the round, the 22-year-old Australian Jason Day and the 26-year-old Dustin Johnson, struggled; Day shot a 71 and Johnson a 72.

The 27-year-old Laird, meanwhile, birdied his first two holes but double-bogeyed No. 3, and he added two more bogeys to put him at par for the day heading into No. 17.

Kuchar, a former United States Amateur champion with two career PGA Tour victories, had moved up with a steady afternoon in which he hit 10 of 14 fairways and needed only 24 putts. Kuchar birdied No. 16 and No. 17 to head to the clubhouse tied with Laird, who was three groups behind him. But Laird quickly regained the lead, sinking a 7 ½-foot putt for his own birdie on the par-5 17th to move to 13 under over all.

Laird only needed to par No. 18 — a hole he had parred twice and birdied once in the first three rounds — to seal his second career PGA victory. His drive found the rough, but he recovered well to land on the back of the green. Then Laird took out his putter, which had served him so well at the Barclays, and lined up from 23 feet away. At that point, he had needed only 22 putts through 17 holes.

But his birdie putt was too strong, missing left and rolling well past the hole. Yet Laird had another chance to seal the victory. Lining up in the opposite direction from 7 feet, Laird got the speed right but missed wide by a few inches.

The sudden-death play-off began on No. 18, and both players landed in the lush rough off the tee. But Kuchar recovered with a masterly shot. His 7-iron shot rolled all the way to the back of the green, where it hugged the fringe and arced back toward the hole, like a hockey puck along the boards behind the goal looping back toward where it came. The ball came to rest 30 inches from the pin near the back of the green.

Laird could do nothing, and he realised it (“You know, you got to smile,” he said when asked his reaction to Kuchar’s shot). He made par; Kuchar made birdie. It was a victory that just moments earlier seemed to be all but locked up for Laird.

Kuchar’s victory came a few hours after Woods finished his round — a five-birdie performance that marked a significant recovery from his midtournament struggles, when he coughed up the lead with a string of bogeys Friday and Saturday.

Still, Woods’s tie for 12th was his best finish since the United States Open more than two months ago. He jumped to 65th in the FedEx Cup standings from 112th, allowing him to advance to next weekend’s Deutsche Bank Championship.

Kuchar entered ninth in the standings, and he now holds first place. Laird — who like Woods entered at risk of not advancing — moved up to third from 95th, and he took some consolation in that, despite the way his round ended. “To be honest, I thought I’d probably be a little more gutted than I am,” Laird said.