Well. I guess there’s not much else to say besides this one word: Wow. Right when you think you know how something is going to end up, right when you think you’ve seen it all, Tiger Woods turns it around and once again turns into THE Tiger Woods and comes from behind to prove once and for all that he is the best golfer the world has ever seen. Ever.
One Hole To Turn It Around
That’s right, Padraig Harrington might have thought it was in the bag, he might have thought he might actually sneak one out from underneath Tiger’s nose, steal a victory at a tournament that Tiger has previously dominated. No matter what he might have thought, it didn’t happen. I suppose you could actually narrow it down this time around, to one shot that turned everything around.
16h Hole Deadly & Heavenly
The 16th hole proved to be deadly to Padraig and Heavenly to Woods. While Harrington was only able to irk out a triple bogey on the hole, Tiger’s 8-iron approach shot to the water-protected green rolled within inches, an easy tap-in to turn things around. Going into the 16th hole Tiger was 1 stroke off the lead, by the end of 18 he had somehow turned it all around and won the tournament with relative ease, elevating his lead to a full 4 strokes over both Padraig Harrington and Robert Allenby.
Tiger 3 Wins Behind Nicklaus
So what does this mean for Tiger? Well for starters, it means an additional 550 FedEx Cup points, which puts him solidly in the lead with a 946 point buffer; in addition to that, it also means that Tiger Woods is the first person in PGA History to win 7 times on the same course. On top of ALL of this, he also notched his 70th PGA Tour Victory. He is now only 3 victories behind Jack Nicklaus who is in 2nd place, and 12 behind Sam Snead, the all time leader. In a word…Wow.
Tiger Sounds Off…
Here’s what Tiger had to say about his battle with Harrington, and the final round:
“We locked horns pretty good…I made a couple of mistakes. Paddy was being consistent, grinding it out, doing all the right things. Unfortunately, 16 happened. But it was a great battle all day.”
A great battle indeed. Thanks Tiger and Thanks Paddy for reminding us just how GREAT golf can be. Sunday, Golf, it doesn’t get much better.
(image Greenwood/Getty Images)