Snedeker loses spot in finale to Senden on the last hole
By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM Chief of Correspondents
LEMONT, Ill. -- Brandt Snedeker finished signing one last autograph Sunday afternoon and turned toward the parking lot outside the Cog Hill clubhouse where his caddy was packing up the car.
"Y'all found me," Snedeker said with a wan smile as he came face-to-face with six reporters who had formed a human wall on the asphalt path.
The young Tennessean had just four-putted the final hole while playing in the final group of the final round of the BMW Championship. With the triple bogey, he fell from 28th in the FedExCup standings to 32nd so he won't be playing in THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola, after all.
"I just started thinking about the wrong things," Snedeker said with a sigh. "I didn't concentrate over the bogey putt. I was thinking about all the things THE TOUR Championship comes with and I did everything you're not supposed to do. So I'm sure Dr. (Bob) Rotella and I will have a nice long talk tonight and he'll tell me everything I did wrong and we'll learn from it."
Snedeker put on a brave face but his disappointment was palpable, just as John Senden's had been about 15 minutes earlier when he was stopped by some of the same reporters on the stairs that led to the locker room. He thought his double bogey at No. 17 had eliminated him but as it turned out, Snedeker's misfortune was the Aussie's gain.
The seismic shift in emotions capped a day of high drama at Cog Hill that saw two players -- rookie Marc Leishman and Luke Donald -- play their way into the finale of the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup. Another, Jim Furyk, moved up 18 spots and cracked the top five in the standings, so he'll be one of the chosen few who controls his own destiny in the hunt for the $10 million bonus.
Senden's caddy was checking the projections on the computer outside the scoring trailer as the crowd groaned while watching Snedeker miss the 14-footer for par, a 3-footer for bogey and the tap-in from 14 inches for the double. He rushed toward his boss to tell Senden that he was now the last man in at East Lake rather than the first one out.
"It was my goal at the start of the year," said Senden, whose disappointment turned to relief. "Finishing right on the number I guess was amazing. ... It's a funny game, isn't it?"
Snedeker had started the final round in a distant tie for second behind Tiger Woods, and at one point during the round, the projected FedExCup standings had him as high as 10th. He started to slip midway through the afternoon, though, and when he came to the 72nd hole, Snedeker was holding on at No. 28.
His tee shot landed in the primary rough and his second was short of the water that guards the left side of the green. Snedeker wasn't sure what he needed to do to maintain his spot in the all-important top 30 so he asked NBC announcer Roger Maltbie how things stood.
"I thought I had to make par and he told me I could make bogey and get it," Snedeker said. "It shouldn't have affected me and it shows you how weak mentally I am. It shows you what I need to work on. I'll work on it and we'll be back next year."
Snedeker, who has played 13 of the last 14 weeks and admitted he was "mentally fatigued," described the bogey putt as a "full-out yip." He felt like he played well for 95 percent of the week but he just couldn't get the putts to fall when he needed them to on Sunday.
"If I'd made a couple of birdies on the back nine I would've been fine," Snedeker said. "That's the great thing about the system. You wanted more parity. You wanted more guys having putts, 3-footers, that mean something and I just showed you why 3-footers that mean something are a lot longer than they look."
Maltbie apologized after the round but Snedeker told him there was no need. He took full responsibility -- "It's all on me," Snedeker later said -- and don't even ask him to explain why he posed the question in the first place.
"I should have just gone about my merry way and try to make par," Snedeker said. "That shows you what I need to work on. It's just kind of one of those things where it's all mental, 100 percent mental. It's nothing physical, it's 100 percent mental. So we'll work on it and hopefully be stronger next year.
"It's frustrating. It's going to be a long flight home. A long couple of days off but I'll be back at Turning Stone (Resort) and be going strong."
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