Bart Bryant fended off a mid-round challenge from Tiger Woods to win the Tour Championship in Atlanta by six strokes.

Starting the final round with a three-shot lead, Bryant birdied three of the first six holes to double his advantage and easily held on for his third victory in the past 14 months.

"I did not think I could make it into the Tour Championship and I certainly didn't think I could win. I feared choking my guts out all week long," said Bryant, who dusted off the world's best players for a record-equalling six-stroke victory over Woods at East Lake.

This one was worth £669,000 and bumped him to ninth on the money list. Not bad for a 42-year-old who never had previously won on the PGA Tour.

"I am thrilled beyond description," said Bryant, whose closing 67 gave him a tournament record of 17-under-par 263.

A medium-length, straight hitter, Bryant led the field in both fairways hit and greens in regulation. His game was ideally suited to a bone-dry East Lake course with plenty of roll, and the mental resilience he displayed to cope with the pressure of leading after every round was perhaps even more impressive.

"Last night in bed, I really pictured myself getting off to a really hot start, and that's what happened," he said.

Bryant certainly needed the cushion, because bogeys at the fifth and sixth holes gave his rivals a glimmer of hope. The dropped shot at the par-three sixth could have been worse, because he found the water short of the green and did well to limit the damage to one stroke by sinking an eight-footer.

"I was very shocked to see it (tee shot) come back into the water," he said. "I thought if I just got my club on the ball, I was going to get over the water. I hit it just a touch heavy. That was an anxious moment. I started having things going on in my mind, like, 'How many can we chunk in the water from this ball drop?"'

Retief Goosen, who started the day in second place, was off his game, leaving it to Woods to provide the only real threat.

But even Woods was too far back to make it much of a contest. He picked up three birdies in four holes midway through the round, but Bryant matched him and had the luxury of cruising to victory by playing the final six holes in one over.

"Every week, I feel I belong more and more where I am," he said. "I certainly don't put myself up there in the same category as Tiger, but I have found that if I am on top of my game, under the right conditions, I definitely can compete."

Woods, who shot 69, paid tribute to the winner.

"He did what he had to do," Bryant said. "He was very consistent all week. He just kept hitting fairways and greens and making a couple of putts and he had a little spurt on the back nine that basically iced it."

Collated final round scores & totals in the USPGA Tour the TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola, East Lake GC, United States of America (USA unless stated, par 70):

263 Bart Bryant 62 68 66 67

269 Tiger Woods 66 67 67 69

271 Scott Verplank 67 66 69 69

273 Retief Goosen (Rsa) 64 66 69 74, Davis Love III 68 71 65 69, Vijay Singh (Fij) 69 69 68 67

274 Padraig Harrington (Irl) 71 66 68 69, Ben Crane 68 65 72 69, Stuart Appleby (Aus) 70 65 71 68, Adam Scott (Aus) 73 69 65 67

275 Mark Calcavecchia 72 69 68 66

276 Sean O'Hair 73 73 64 66

277 Jim Furyk 70 70 67 70

278 Olin Browne 70 67 71 70, Tim Herron 73 68 71 66, Luke Donald (Eng) 70 67 70 71

279 Ted Purdy 71 69 69 70, Chris DiMarco 69 72 67 71, Chad Campbell 72 68 70 69

281 Kenny Perry 65 73 71 72, Sergio Garcia (Spa) 66 72 71 72

282 Tim Clark (Rsa) 67 67 72 76, David Toms 72 72 68 70

283 Billy Mayfair 72 69 71 71, Charles Howell III 67 68 70 78, Fred Funk 71 72 70 70

284 Brandt Jobe 73 71 70 70

287 Justin Leonard 70 74 71 72

289 Lucas Glover 72 70 73 74