Molinari romps at National
Tiger Woods ties for fourth place, 10 shots back
POTOMAC, Md. – Tiger Woods was charging up the leaderboard in Sunday’s final round of the Quicken Loans National, the red numbers on his scorecard matching the familiar final-round color of his shirt.
The masses were stirring as Woods took aim at the leaders, cutting his sixshot deficit at the start of the day to four with his third birdie on the front nine at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm. Then came the recurring letdown. Just as he did in the third round, Woods wilted in the heat index that reached into triple digits and became his own worst enemy. In a familiar scene that’s played out on the weekends in three previous starts, especially on Sundays, Woods put himself onto the front page of the leaderboard only to start making silly and, at times, shocking mistakes.
That was the case again when Woods took momentum to the back nine at TPC Potomac and then missed a birdie putt from 6 feet on the 10th. Made a sloppy bogey on 11. After he righted the ship with a birdie from 5 feet on 12, he bogeyed the short 13th after finding the rough with a 4-iron off the tee, just as he did in the third round, then missed from
4 feet for a birdie on 14.
“The last two days playing 13, 14 the way I did, you know, I bogeyed 13 twice and then didn’t birdie 14 either day and I was right there next to the green,” Woods said when asked if he could have some shots back. For the week, he played those two ripe-for-scoring holes
1 over, making only one birdie on the drivable par-4 14th. “Those are things I can’t afford to do and expect to win a golf tournament.”
Woods will need to change this current harmful habit or he won’t capture his 80th PGA Tour title and first victory in five years. Despite rounds of 70-65
68-66 and finishing 11 under and in a tie for fourth — his third top-five finish of the year — he knew the week could have been better.
Then again, he still wouldn’t have kept up with Francesco Molinari. What Woods needed was Molinari’s stretch to open the back nine. Molinari never buckled on the front nine despite hearing the Tiger roars and then took a stranglehold on the tournament with an eagle from 48 feet on No. 10, a birdie from 2 feet on 11, a birdie from 7 feet on 12, a birdie from 12 feet on 13 and another birdie from 2 feet on 14.
In just under 90 minutes, Molinari stretched his lead from three shots to nine. He won by eight.
The steady, unflappable Molinari finished with a 62 and at 21 under in winning his first PGA Tour title to go along with five victories on the European Tour, including this year’s BMW Cham- pionship in England when he held off Rory McIlroy by two shots. He also won the 2010 World Golf ChampionshipsHSBC Champions in China.
“Francesco was phenomenal,” Woods said. “I thought I had a legit chance starting that back nine if I posted a good number, but Francesco just ran away with it.”
Woods will now head over the pond in three weeks for the 147th British Open at Carnoustie, one of the toughest courses in the Open rotation. He’ll do so with more positives than negatives after this week and he’ll have a new friend in his luggage — the TaylorMade TP Ardmore 3 mallet he used for the first time. Woods is satisfied he benched his Scotty Cameron Newport 2 blade.
“I rolled the ball well this week,” he said. “It felt good to start my ball on the lines again. The putts I missed, I hit a lot of good ones, which I don’t mind because I hadn’t been doing that for a while, the better part of two months. Even my good ones didn’t look very good when I was struggling, so this was nice. Even my bad putts this week still had the go-in look. When I was struggling there for a little bit and I couldn’t even cheer for my good ones.”
Looks like he’s taken care of that problem. Now, about those momentum killers.