Not sure which one is more fired up -- Tiger for winning or Arnie for having Tiger provide another dramatic finish at Bay Hill.
Mar. 30, 2009
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FLAIR FOR THE DRAMATIC: Dusk was about to fade to darkness and I was having an instant message exchange with our executive producer on whether or not Tiger Woods was going to make the 15-foot, 11-inch putt he was standing over on the 18th green Sunday at Bay Hill. After seeing Woods back off the putt and knowing it would have a little left-to-right break on it, I said he'd miss it.
Foolish.
At that point, just about everyone was sort of rooting, or hoping, for Woods to make it because no one -- players included -- wanted to come back the next morning for a playoff that would likely last all of one or two holes. Tiger obliged. If there's ever been someone who knows how to deliver on cue, it's Woods. He's Michael Jordan with the ball in his hands and the clock winding down -- he simply doesn't miss in those situations. I can't even remember the last time he missed a putt he absolutely had to have.
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Poor Sean O'Hair. He's a good kid with a great swing and now he knows what all those guys victimized by Jordan and Tiger feel like. It's not the first time we've seen this from Woods, obviously, and it won't be the last. And no matter how many times we see Woods do what he does, it never gets old. It only gets better. -- Brian Wacker
HATS OFF TO O'HAIR: Was a second-place showing at Bay Hill what Sean O'Hair was looking for after starting the final round with a five-shot advantage? Absolutely not. But let's put it in perspective. It wasn't just any player O'Hair was leading by five. This was Tiger Woods. The Tiger Woods who, until Sunday, had already been a five-time winner at Bay Hill.
Tiger's incredible performance, coupled with some untimely swings by O'Hair, led to victory No. 6 at Arnie's place. But O'Hair shouldn't hang his head. The bottom line here is that O'Hair continues week after week to put himself in a position to win. If he does that enough, O'Hair will surely win his fair share of tournaments.
In eight starts this season, O'Hair has finished no worse than a tie for 25th, save the Transitions Championship, where he was the defending champ and missed the cut. Included in those seven top 25s are a runner-up, a fourth and a tie for fifth. And he's No. 8 in the FedExCup standings.
If O'Hair keeps doing what he's doing, the wins will come. The law of averages say so. -- T.J. Auclair
LUCK CHANGING FOR CHOPRA?: It has been a long time coming for Daniel Chopra. He ended last year with a string of missed cuts and 2009 didn't start much better. He finished tied for 27th at the Mercedes-Benz Championship, where he was the defending champion. His only other paycheck of the year came at the Northern Trust Open, where he finished tied for 72nd.
Chopra put together a consistent performance at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard. Although he never contended for the title, the 69 he shot on Sunday was good enough for a tie for eighth, his first top-10 finish in more than a year. Since winning the Mercedes-Benz Championship, Chopra has only made half his cuts and never been a factor in any of those tournaments.
This year, Chopra's problems have come with the fact that he has struggled to find the fairway, hitting little more than half of them. At Bay Hill, he hit nearly 70 percent of his fairways and was able to post his best finish in 15 months. Perhaps good things are finally on the horizon. -- John Maginnes
ONE LAST CHANCE: A year ago, Davis Love III went turkey hunting. He didn't earn his way into the Masters for the first time in 17 consecutive seasons but as much as he wanted to be there, Love "didn't sit all day and cry in front of the TV."
Love finds himself in a similar situation this week. He goes to the Shell Houston Open needing to win to get the final invitation to Augusta National -- just as he did in 1995 when he won the Freeport-McMoran Classic the week before the Masters.
Love played in last week's Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard needing to maintain his position in the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking on Sunday night to earn his spot. When Pat Perez salvaged bogey from the rocks beside the 18th green, though, he squeezed Love, who had started the week ranked No. 47, out of the top 50 by four-one hundredths of a point.
Of all the majors, the Masters seemed the one Love was most destined to win. He was born on the Monday after his father shared the 36-hole lead and Love had finished second there twice once he was grown. Here's hoping he gets another chance. -- Helen Ross
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| Stock up |
Sean O'Hair: Call it what you want, but O'Hair isn't the only one to wilt in Tiger's enormous shadow. The bottom line is O'Hair's swing changes are still a work in progress and he's just 26 years old. He's long and accurate on the course, resilient off it and will bounce back from this.
FedExCup rank: 8 (19 last week) |
John Senden: The Australian had his best finish since a runner-up at last year's PODS Championship with a T4 finish that was highlighted by an early birdie run that shot him into contention Sunday. A couple of late bogeys hurt, but his final-round 67 tied for the second-lowest score of the day.
FedExCup rank: 43 (71 last week) |
Nick Watney: Another week, another strong performance from Watney, who had four birdies in a five-hole stretch on the back nine Sunday. He tied for the most birdies and tied for second in greens in regulation for the week and continues to show he's going to stick around for a long, long time.
FedExCup rank: 3 (3 last week) |
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| Stock down |
Vijay Singh: He normally eats up Bay Hill, but the defending FedExCup champion just isn't himself right now. Of the 18 holes at Bay Hill, he bogeyed or double-bogeyed 14 of them at least once during his four days there. The other four holes weren't all that fruitful -- just one birdie collectively. No wonder he finished T59.
FedExCup rank: 119 (126 last week) |
Scott Piercy: After opening with a solid 1-over 71, Piercy imploded on Friday, making six bogeys, two double bogeys and one triple bogey on his way to an 82 and a missed cut. Not exactly what was expected given how Bay Hill suits his game. Piercy has run hot (five top 20s) and cold (three MCs) this year.
FedExCup rank: 39 (34 last week) |
Ryuji Imada: A second-round 66 had Imada in contention. Back-to-back 73s on the weekend knocked him out of contention as he went from T3 at the start of the final round to T17 at the end of it. Imada had a total of four bogeys and a double bogey on the back nine the last two days. Still, it wasn't a total loss, since he moved up in the FedExCup.
FedExCup rank: 44 (49 last week) |
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| A Quick 18 |
| Front Nine | Back Nine |
| Sean O'Hair has some fight in him. After he lost to Tiger Woods, he was asked what was going through his mind as Woods lined up the winning putt. "It's not like it's The Tiger Show and I'm just out there to watch him," O'Hair said. "Just because he's good doesn't mean we're out there watching him." Not every player can honestly say that. | Tiger now has 12 PGA TOUR wins in his adopted home state of Florida -- six at Bay Hill, three at Doral, two at Walt Disney World and one at TPC Sawgrass. His first shot at No. 13 will come in May back at Sawgrass at THE PLAYERS Championship. |
| Tiger was listening when Commissioner Tim Finchem made a recent plea to players to do whatever they can to help in this time of economic crisis. Woods last week hosted an outing at his home club of Isleworth last week, with the attendees comprised of corporate big-wigs. "We're in a time when we need to do whatever we can to help the TOUR," Tiger told GolfDigest.com. | Arnold Palmer will start making changes to the Bay Hill course in May, saying, "What we do to Bay Hill for next year will be something that we hope will make it more exciting and bring the golf course back to where we'd like to have it." As long as Tiger's rolling in long birdie putts on the 72nd hole, excitement will never be a problem at Bay Hill. |
| It was 10 years ago at Bay Hill that Steve Williams first carried Tiger Woods' bag. Woods finished T56, closing out his week with three straight rounds of 72. It took them just six events, however, to get their first win together. First of 58 (and counting), that is. | Just when it looked like Woods' stranglehold on the top spot in the Official World Golf Rankings might be ripped away from him, he goes out and wins at Bay Hill. As a result, Woods has opened up a gap of 1.58 points over Phil Mickelson. Woods has been atop the rankings for the last 199 weeks and for a total of 541 weeks in his career. |
| For all the talk of how good Tiger is as a front-runner, he's proven to be pretty good at coming from behind, too. Of his 66 career wins, Woods has come from behind 19 times. Sunday matched the largest comeback of his career (he also rallied from five back going into the final round of the 2000 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am). | Apparently Stewart Cink's not just the TOUR's resident meteorologist or a huge sports fan. He's also up on celebrity gossip. This from his Twitter feed: "Thrashers continue rolling with win over Ottawa. Side note: Ottawa player Mike Fisher dates Carrie Underwood, which ups hockey's coolness! |
| As good as Tiger's five-shot rally on Sunday at Bay Hill was, it wasn't the biggest final-day comeback in tournament history. Tom Kite and Gary Koch both came from six strokes back to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational in 1982 and 1984, respectively. Woods, however, is the only player to win the event more than twice. | Speaking of coolness, the LPGA's Anna Rawson is the latest GoDaddy.com girl, joining auto racer Danica Patrick, model Candice Michelle and poker player Vanessa Rousso. "She is edgy, she is fun, she is hotter than firecrackers," the company's CEO told the Arizona Republic. |
| Sunday must've felt a little like THE PLAYERS Championship two years ago for O'Hair, who was a little amped up and pumped two balls into the water on the 17th at TPC Sawgrass. This time at Bay Hill, O'Hair shouted at his ball to go. It didn't. It hit the slope short of the green and bounced back into the water. | If you buy a TaylorMade R9, r7 Limited or '09 Burner driver before April 12, and Sergio Garcia wins the Masters, you'll get your money back, courtesy of Golfsmith. All of the sudden, Sergio -- who has struggled at Augusta since a T4 in 2004 -- may have a lot more fans next week. |
| While Woods was busy winning another tournament in another dramatic fashion, his good pal Mark O'Meara was busy losing one in a similar fashion. Looking for his first win on the Champions Tour, O'Meara was denied when Keith Fergus made a spectacular eagle on the 17th to win by one at Cap Cana. | Think about this: Since the 2006 British Open, Tiger has won 18 of his last 31 starts on the PGA TOUR. That's a winning percentage of 58 percent. For his career, he's winning at just under 28 percent (66 wins in 239 TOUR starts). By comparison's sake, all-time TOUR wins leader Sam Snead won at a 15 percent clip (82 of 549 starts). |
| The tournaments Woods has now won six or more times: the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational, World Golf Championships-CA Championship, the Buick Invitational and, of course, the Arnold Palmer Invitational. It's pretty amazing that 24 of his 66 wins have come from four tournaments. | Smart decision by NBC to decide to stick with Sunday's final round until its conclusion. Initially, the network announced that it would extend its coverage until 7 p.m. Even if things hadn't ended as dramatically as they did, it was the right call. |
| Bizarre -- and telling -- stat of the week from Bay Hill: There were 21 players who shot over par in the third round and actually improved their position on the leaderboard. That's something you'd expect at a U.S. Open, not Bay Hill. Of that group, a half-dozen players jumped 17 spots on the board. | The boom that fans heard in the skies above Bay Hill on Saturday wasn't thunder. It was the space shuttle Discovery breaking the sound barrier as it landed at Kennedy Space Center some 60 miles west of Orlando, which caused one fan to quip, "Wow, nice shot Vaughn!" to Vaughn Taylor, who got a chuckle out of it with playing partner Woods.
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| The Forward Spin |
The hype-o-meter will be redlined if Phil Mickelson or Sergio Garcia wins this week's Shell Houston Open, where Johnson Wagner is the defending champion.
And it'll really be in overdrive if Greg Norman or Fred Couples -- the two Presidents Cup captains this year -- find themselves in contention. Norman will be playing in his first PGA TOUR event in the U.S. since last year's AT&T Classic outside Atlanta.
Houston is the last chance for players to prepare for the year's first major, the Masters. It also gives anybody not in the Masters field a chance to play their way in with a win. It's no surprise that the TOUR's first event in Texas this year will have a stellar field.
This week also presents Vijay Singh an opportunity to turn around what's been a fairly abysmal season by his standards. Singh has two career wins at Redstone (albeit on the Member Course), owns the tournament course record and could use a little comfort food going into Augusta National, since he hasn't been the same since returning from surgery on his right knee.
Adam Scott, who was victorious there in 2007, could also use a pick-me-up. |
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PGATOUR.COM'S Brian Wacker wrote the Quick 18, Stock up/Stock Down and Forward Spin.
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