Tiger Helps Victoria In "Beating Off" New South Wales

Matthew Clayfield and Brent Read report on Tiger's decision to alleviate $3 million of Victorian Government money from the bloated coffers to force him to play the Australian Masters.

I'm not quite so sure this was the best phrasing in sentence two:

Victoria's Premier John Brumby last night confirmed Woods would play at Melbourne's Kingston Heath in November, beating off the NSW Government, which had hoped to snare him for the Australian Open to be played in Sydney.