Wood makes it over the line after collapse
‘The front nine he played like the world No.1 and on the second nine he was more like the No.1000’
AT 6FT 6ins, Chris Wood is walking tall at the best of times but he was striding out a bit higher than normal at Wentworth last night as this big yin from Bristol won the BMW PGA Championship. The planes from nearby Heathrow probably had to negotiate their way round him.
He didn’t make it easy, mind you. After a record-equalling 29 to the turn, which helped him open up a four-shot lead with seven to play, Wood stumbled towards the finishing line with a succession of bogeys that ensured the kind of tense finale in which finger nails get savaged.
Sitting in the clubhouse, some twoand-a-half hours after he’d finished, was Sweden’s Rikard Karlberg who had posted the target of eight-under with a rousing 65.
Thank goodness then for the calming reason of a Scottish caddie. After Wood had leaked a shot on the 17th to see his lead reduced to one, his Prestwick bagman, Mark Crane, put his own nerves to one side to offer cautious, considered wisdom on the 18th.
Wood was keen to have a go for the green with his second shot on the treacherous par-5 but Crane convinced him to play it safe. “I was a bit unsure of the situation and I only had a 6-iron in but there’s no margin for error and Mark said ‘just lay up”, admitted Wood after finishing ahead of Karlberg and Masters champion Danny Willett, who was third.
A couple of sand wedges on to the putting surface was hardly grandstand stuff but it completed a three-under 69 for a nine-under 279 and a huge triumph worth £637,341. Crane deserves his cut of that.
“The front nine he played like the world No.1 and on the second nine he was like the world No.1000,” chortled the relieved Crane. “But there was a lot of pressure. My mouth was dry too. It wasn’t pretty coming in but who cares when you win.”
Wood, who is now in line for a Ryder Cup debut, agreed with that. “It’s very hard to win . . . and I proved that,” added the 28-year-old , who was three strokes off the lead after 54 holes. “But this is huge for me.”
It was Scott Hend and Tyrell Hatton who set off in the final group with the former holding a slender one-shot advantage. That didn’t last very long. The 42-year-old found the bunker on the first and took two swipes to gouge himself out on his way to a double-bogey six. It was a sign of things to come as Hend endured the kind of calamitous plummet that used to be the reserve of Icarus. An outward half of 41, en route to a 78, saw him down among the rank and file and his hopes of becoming the first Australian to win the PGA crown since 1990 were well and truly scuppered.
Hatton’s ambitions also withered and four bogeys in five holes from the seventh thwarted his assault on a first European Tour title.
Karlberg certainly had a go in a barnstorming final day that saw him come rampaging up the standings.In stark contrast, the Swede’s playing partner, Scott Jamieson, stumbled through the front nine in 39 blows on a card strewn with the debris of three double-bogeys. Karlberg’s profitable burst was clearly not infectious.
There wasn’t much to write home about as far as the Scots were concerned. David Drysdale, who was nipping round the M25 to compete in today’s US Open qualifier at nearby Walton Heath, was the best of the lot on a one-over 289 with Richie Ramsay and Jamieson trudging in on a 290 and a 291 respectively.