Triple-bogey leaves Woods on outside
LYTHAM ST. ANNES, U.K. – As his approach shot to the sixth green was hurtling toward the target, Tiger Woods said “One yard!”
But his ball wasn’t listening, didn’t carry that one yard, and lodged near the steep sod wall of the greenside bunker, leaving him an impossible shot.
“The game plan was to fire it into the bank, have it ricochet to the right and then have an angle to come back at it,” he said. “Unfortunately, it ricocheted left, and almost hit me.”
Still in the bunker but up against the lip, he had to try his next shot while sitting on his left hip, with his right foot extended for traction. The ball hit the lip and got out, but he three-putted and made a triple-bogey that, despite four more birdies, left him too far back to put any pressure on Adam Scott, who led until the 71st hole. Woods shot 73 to finish tied for third with Brandt Snedeker.
Of Scott’s pitiable collapse, Woods said: “It’s happened to all of us at one point or another.”
‘A’ for honesty
Graeme McDowell hit perhaps the day’s worst shot trying to go for the 11th green in two, duck-hooking his three-wood deep into the gorse to the left.
“Came straight over the top of it. That’s my bad move,” he said. “I spin out very hard, move my body left in an attempt not to get the club flailing right, and that was just a bad pull. A 15-handicapper. Card-wrecker. Not pretty.
“It was a tough day. Yes, Ernie Els shot 32 on the back to overcome us and win this, fair play to him, but he’s also been handed it, as well. I felt Adam’s name was on the trophy, I really did.”
Controversy delayed
Scott’s failure to close the deal will at least allow the long-putter debate to recede to the back burner until the R&A and USGA rule on it, probably in the fall.
The belly-putter debate? Not so much. Ernie Els uses one.
Most seem to think it’s inevitable that anchoring the putter will be made illegal.
“Not because I have any knowledge that they’re going to ban (long putters), that’s more or less the consensus, they’re going to have a two-year grace, a bit like the (square) grooves,” said Padraig Harrington. “I just hope that they don’t wait too long.
“It doesn’t take away from a guy using it at the moment. You can use whatever you’d like within the rules. It’s like the grooves; the grooves were a big advantage to me. They were within the rules, now they’re not within the rules. I hope they don’t wait until I’m 50 years of age to change the rule.”
No luck, Stevie
Another story that went by the boards with Scott’s collapse was another major win for his caddy Steve Williams, who collected 13 of them before being fired by Tiger Woods.
Geoff Ogilvy said it’s no coincidence Scott’s confidence has grown with Williams.
“If Steve does anything as a caddie, he makes his player feel like the best player in the world, just by the way he talks to them, by the way he carries himself. You can go way back to the early ’80s, anyone he’s caddied for thinks he’s the best caddie because they feel a better player, straight away from the first tee.
“And that’s probably one of the most important things a caddie can do.”
Two good reasons
Asked why he is moving his family to Florida, Lee Westwood said: “The English winters and the English summers.”
“And the fact I like playing on the PGA Tour now. I used to … it was well reported that I struggled over there, but over the last few years I’ve seemed to enjoy it a lot more.”