Heeeeeee’ssssssss Baaaaaaaaakkkkkkk!
by Herschel Caldwell
It was at the 1999 Bay Hill Invitational that Tiger Woods and Steve Williams first worked together. Woods wound up cashing a 54th-place check that week, and it would be his worst finish at Arnold Palmer’s event.
Ten years later, he’s won the tournament six times, with three victories coming on 72nd-hole birdies. The most recent example took place at approximately 7:45 PM ET Sunday, when Tiger rolled in a 16-footer to outlast upstart Sean O’Hair, who began the day with a five-shot lead.
But as we’ve come to learn, when you’re in the last group with Tiger, no lead is insurmountable. And while we continue to stare, jaw agape, at Woods’ Sunday performance, it’s worth remembering what got him into final threesome. In Round 3, he had two spectacular bogey saves on 16th and 18th holes, and without those two seemingly meaningless strokes, he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to play alongside O’Hair.
Instead, Woods would’ve begun the final round seven shots back, O’Hair could’ve continued to play his fairways-and-greens game without the pressure that comes with being a bit player in a Woods circus that includes larger-than-imaginable galleries, the unyielding media glare and, of course, Tiger.
Perhaps predictably, Woods does what we’ve come to expect when a tournament is on the line: minimize his mistakes, makes crucial putts, and let his nearest opponent self-destruct. And that’s basically what happened Sunday. O’Hair, who played flawlessly for the first 54 holes of the week, struggled early and often on Sunday, but it wasn’t until the 15th hole that Woods finally pulled even at 5-under.
After trading bogeys on consecutive holes, both players headed to the 18th tied at 4-under. O’Hair’s middle iron from the fairway found the back of the green, while Woods’ ball came to rest some 16 feet left of the pin. It was at this point that everybody — even O’Hair, I’d imagine — knew how this was going to play out. And I suspect Bart Bryant was somewhere watching this unfold,
This is Woods’ 66th career PGA victory in 239 events.