As I picked up my Crackberry Sunday morning, Gene Wojciechowski had his article titled, “Tiger won’t Let 15th Major Title Slip Away at Hazeltine,” on the front page of ESPN.com. In the article, Wojciechowski predicted a final round 74 for Y.E. Yang. No one thought what happened Sunday afternoon with Tiger and Yang would happen, except for maybe a small group of Yang’s supporters. If I told you prior to the final round that their scores would have been 75 and 70, most people (self included) would have predicted the 70 for Woods and 75 for Yang. The best way to say what happened Sunday was Tiger was Tigerized. As I was watching things go down live, all I could think is that Tiger is getting beat at his own game. Yang laid back on many holes (or could just not hit it as far as Tiger) thus hit his approach shots in before Tiger. This would put the pressure on Tiger to hit great shots and also allowed Yang to hit his shots while the Tiger galleries were settled. No matter how much you try not to turn things into match play situations, you have to think Tiger let that into his thoughts on several holes. Yang was hitting shots that Tiger was expected to hit, leaving himself the uphill putts and Tiger was missing shots and leaving himself putts normally reserved for his opponents, or missing the greens completely. It was not as if Tiger was playing poorly, he was just getting outplayed, something none of us were used to seeing.
To put things in perspective, Y.E. Yang was getting 150-to-1 odds at the beginning of the tournament and 16-to-1 before Sunday’s final round. Irish bookmaker Paddy Power was so confident of a Tiger Woods victory, that they paid off, on FRIDAY, anyone who, at 1-to-5 odds, had bet on Tiger. Yang’s victory ending up costing the bookmaker almost $2.12 Million!!!
Television ratings were up 150 % over last year’s tournament, when Tiger was at home recovering from surgery. I had told someone last week, I would take the field if they would take Tiger, and Sunday I felt pretty good. The other three days of the tournament, I felt like an idiot. I thought Harrington would be the guy to slay Tiger after last weekend, but his 8 on a par 3 destroyed his chances at the PGA Championship. This just goes to show you that on any given Sunday, you can be beaten.
Other Thoughts from the weekend
· Speaking of any given Sunday, did anyone see who finished 3rd at the Michigan Race?? Dale Jr. This was only his 2nd Top 5 finish of the season.
· Pre-Season football is in full swing and I am still awaiting something worthwhile to happen. I am also waiting to see who will jump out, like Chris Johnson did last year, so I can find a sleeper for my fantasy football team!!
· I am heading to Bristol for the race this weekend and may do a blog or two from up there. Hopefully I can figure out how to add some pictures by then.