Tiger shows us he indeed can win again It’s Thomas in a playoff
Reigning Player of the Year defeats List on 1st extra hole
PALM BEACH GARDENS — Listen to those cheers. Can you hear them? They tell the story of this Honda Classic. They provide the sound track, day after day, shot after Tiger Woods shot, right until Sunday when he walked up the 18th fairway to the final hole.
People stood. People cheered. That, in itself, is not so unusual. The noise around Tiger always has been different than anyone in golf, even as he’s struggled these past several years because golf is a game of goodwill and fans want to offer hope.
But Sunday’s cheers weren’t about hope. They were about golf shots. They were about a 20-foot birdie putt on Sunday’s first hole, and a great tee shot to set up a birdie on the par-3 seventh hole. They were about what you saw, for once, not what you wanted to see.
“I had a shot at it,” Tiger said. “I was right there.”
No, Tiger didn’t win. Justin Thomas did. Tiger finished 12th.. Once upon a time, that would have been a disastrous week for him. But we’re in a different time — “a new reality,” Tiger described it — and such an economy-sized Tiger-mania broke out he was asked if this was the best non-win he’s ever had.
He laughed. “What kind of a question is that?”
It struck the larger point: This tournament is exactly what Tiger needed. He had his first sub-70 round in three years. His back was healthy enough his swing speed reac-
PALM BEACH GARDENS The Honda Classic couldn’t get the script right. It wasn’t decided by a Tiger roar or a grind through the Bear Trap.
Three players emerged from PGA National’s wet and wild big three (holes 15, 16, 17), usually the great decider on the Champion Course, still in lockstep in the final round as the shadows lengthened late Sunday afternoon.
Ultimately, it took a suddendeath playoff to settle the matter after Justin Thomas and Luke List finished 72 holes knotted at 8-under par.
Thomas, the reigning PGA Player of the Year, sank a 6-foot birdie putt on the first playoff hole, No. 18, to take the title a year after missing the cut. He punctuated the eighth win of his career on the PGA Tour and first of 2018 with an emphatic expletive that resonated on the television broadcast.
“It was an emotional win and was happy to get it done. I did not know that was on TV. So I apologize to everybody who heard it,” said Thomas, who moved to No. 2 in the world rankings. “I guess I let