11/24/24
May 12, 2013
Tiger Woods Wins Player's Championship: Tiger Woods won the Player's Championship Sunday after Sergio Garcia put two shots into the water on the 17th hole, the infamous island green on TPC Sawgrass outside of Jacksonville, Fl. Woods and Garcia were tied for the lead prior to Garcia's quadruple bogey. Woods, 37, finished at -13 ahead of three other players for his fourth tournament win of 2013. It's the fastest he's ever won four tournaments in a year. He won this event previously in 2001.
At one point, I thought I might have seen rcade in the gallery at 13.
When there was a 4 way logjam at -12, I thought Garcia was had a good chance to prevail. He looked like he was swinging the club pretty well, and his disposition looked decent (to the extent that you can judge such things on TV).
From what I can tell, Garcia was one of the few players that found the hazard at 17 who elected not to hit his third shot from the drop zone. And then once that, too, fell awry, I assume he felt compelled to hang tough and slug it out with fate from the tee regardless of the outcome.
If Sergio had found the green at 17 with his first shot, parred the hole, and finished alone in second place at -12, he would have earned an additional 788,500.00, which is more than three times the amount that he did earn. The strokes he lost at 17 and 18 cost him a bit more than 130,000.00 each.
posted by beaverboard at 12:54 PM on May 13, 2013
I was planning to go, but ended up watching at home.
I've never seen a leader bomb 17 like that on Sunday. It's a real face-losing moment for Garcia to do that after publicly sparring with Woods. These guys are too rich to care much about the money a late collapse costs them.
Garcia was on the 17th tee tied with Woods. A birdie puts him in command. What a moment to find the water!
posted by rcade at 01:07 PM on May 13, 2013
That was pretty exciting stuff in the end. The more I watch the shot Sergio hit (and, boy, are they hitting replay on the Golf Channel with it this week), the more I reckon he wasn't taking that flag on at all and just came out of the shot a little early. He leaves his hands so far behind the rest of his body on the way down that if he clears his hips even a little early, there's almost no chance that his hands can catch up. The result when he gets out of it seriously early (or when Tiger is picking his nose in the vicinity or whatever) is a massive block like he hit on Saturday; but when he's just fractionally off, possibly because the pressure is on in the final round, the result is just a little bit of a thinned push. If he was playing for the middle of the green, he had to have a club that couldn't go long if he adrenalined it, so as soon as it goes right (and loses distance) you're in big trouble.
So the story he came out with afterwards that he took on the pin and failed might have been disingenuous.
Those last three holes are great for the end of a tournament, especially with the pin at 17 out right like that. If you get a bit quick on it at 16 and leave one out right, you're dead. If you throw your hands over the top to guard against doing that, you're then left with a horrible pitch back towards the water. At 17, everywhere is pretty much dead other than on the green. The joy of it is that it's such a short hole, so the pressure actually increases. Then at 18 you have two choices - pull it into the water or block it into the trees (or, if you're tiger, just rip it like it's a PlayStation with a hard hook round the shape of the hole) and then you've either got to come at that front left pin from a mile away because you dunked the tee shot, or you've got to come across the slope at the front of the green out of the right rough and hope you can somehow get it stopped before it gets wet.
posted by JJ at 04:24 PM on May 15, 2013
Seems like Garcia took a pretty aggressive line on 17 instead of playing for the middle of the green, especially being tied at the time.
Woods, on the other hand, played really well. So many putts throughout the weekend right over the edgeof the cup. He seems pretty happy with where his game is. It will be interesting to see how he plays the short US Open track next month.