Horrible endings for Tiger, McIlroy
AUSTIN, Texas — The conditions were severe. The high stakes put a premium on every shot down the stretch. Tiger Woods was in his element. Only this time, he was a spectator. Woods finally met his match Saturday in the Dell Technologies Match Play, and it wasn’t Rory McIlroy.
Lucas Bjerregaard delivered the clutch shots so often seen from Woods in their quarterfinal match. He holed a 30-foot eagle putt to tie the match on the par-5 16th. He holed a 12-foot birdie putt that snapped hard to the right at the end on No. 17, knowing Woods was in tight for a certain birdie. And on the final hole, Woods blinked first. His lob wedge from a fluffy lie in the rough came out soft, short and in a bunker. Given a chance to send the match to overtime, Woods missed a 4-foot putt.
“It’s a shame it had to end the way it did,” Bjerregaard said. “Our match didn’t deserve that. But I’m happy to be on the winning side.”
Bjerregaard considers Woods his golfing hero, and he used to take his book to the range in Denmark with hopes of copying his swing. He never could get it just right, though the 27-year-old Dane showed plenty of Woods’ mettle.
Equally surprising was how Woods won earlier Saturday against McIlroy, a big match between the two biggest stars left at Austin Country Club. McIlroy was on the verge of squaring the match on the 16th hole when he had a short iron for his second shot into the par-5 16th. He made 7 and Woods closed him out on the next hole.
McIlroy was so angry he walked briskly away into a cart, and wouldn’t make eye contact on his way to the car.
Woods knows the feeling. “This is going to sting for a few days,” Woods said in his last event before the Masters.
Bjerregaard, who won his first European Tour title last fall at St. Andrews in the Dunhill Links, next faces Matt Kuchar this morning in the semifinals.
Kuchar had to cope with a contentious moment in his 2-up victory over Sergio Garcia, two players in the news this year for all the wrong reasons.
Garcia had an 8-foot par putt on No. 7 to win the hole to square the match. He left it just short, and then casually stabbed at it from the other side as it rimmed around the cup. Such putts typically are conceded. Kuchar said that was his intention. But under the rules, a putt can’t be conceded after a player hits it.
Kuchar says he didn’t want to win the hole that way. That’s when Garcia suggested if he felt that way, he could concede the next hole.
“I thought about it and said, ‘I don’t like that idea, either,’ ” he said.
Garcia needed to birdie the 18th hole to send the match into extra holes, missed the green and wound up conceding.
“At the end of the day, I’m the one that made the mistake,” Garcia said.
Overlooked in all this drama was British Open champion Francesco Molinari, who has steamrolled his way into the semifinals. Molinari, at No. 7 the only player from the top 20 remaining, has played only 73 holes in five matches. He faces Kevin Kisner in the semifinals this morning.
WEB.COM: in Savannah, Ga., Rio Rancho native and New Mexico State alumnus Tim Madigan shot 67 Saturday and shares the lead at the Savannah Golf Championship. He, Scottie Scheffler and Dan McCarthy are at 13-under 203 entering today’s final round.
Madigan seeks his first win on the Tour. The winner’s share of the $550,000 purse is $99,000.
LPGA: In Carlsbad, Calif., Inbee Park curled in an 18-foot birdie putt on the par-4 18th for her second straight 5-under 67 and the third-round lead in the Kia Classic. Winless in 12 months, the seven-time major champion from South Korea had a one-stroke advantage over Nasa Hataoka after a low-scoring day in perfect conditions. Thidapa Suwannapura was two strokes back after a 70.