Around the wider world of golf: George Coetzee won the Tshwane Open on the ET; So Yeon Ryu won the World Ladies Championship on the LET; Peter Malnati won the HSBC Brasil Champions on the Web.com Tour; and Ji-Hee Lee won the Yokohama Tire PRGR Ladies Cup on the JLPGA (bangkokbobby has the details).
Whew. Can we catch our breath now?
Before the tournament, on Morning Drive and the Pre Game Show, nobody thought we'd see much in the way of low scores at the Copperhead Course. It had just played too hard all week.
But on Sunday the floodgates opened and, as Jordan Spieth noted in interviews after the round, he and 3rd round leader Ryan Moore suddenly saw players going low with only 5 or 6 holes left to go. And among the leaders, only Ryan Moore failed to get under par; his putter chose the wrong moment to go cold. In the end, Spieth's -2, Sean O'Hair's -4, and Patrick Reed's -5 put them in a three-way playoff.
I don't mean to belittle Sean O'Hair's effort -- before he got sidetracked by the pursuit of perfection (like so many promising players), many thought he might be the Next Big Thing in American Golf -- because it was an outstanding performance and the first clear indication we've had in a while that he could become a serious factor in tournaments going forward. And Henrik Stenson once again showed us that his game is getting back in shape, just in time for major season.
But the fact remains that Spieth and Reed were the big draws. After their Ryder Cup performance at Gleneagles and their continued good play since -- let's not forget that they have 3 worldwide wins between them over the last few months -- they have become the poster boys for US golf. And when you add that Patrick got his first win by beating Jordan in a playoff at the 2013 Wells Fargo event... well, seeing the two in another playoff was just what the ratings folks ordered.
And they didn't let us down. During Sunday's round and the 3-hole playoff, Reed and Spieth calmly put on a scrambling show the likes of which will be talked about for weeks. Reed's par save on the first playoff hole from a plugged lie just beneath a greenside bunker's lip really stands out, yet both players played amazing recovery after amazing recovery all day. And then Spieth sealed the deal with a 28-foot putt for birdie.
The word is that Spieth will leap to #6 in the world when this week's rankings come out. It's good to know that Limerick Summaries won't weight him down, as he appears poised to collect quite a number of them going forward:
The Gleneagles duo returnedThe photo came from the photo page at PGATOUR.com.
As opponents. Spieth seemed unconcerned.
“My loss at Quail Hollow
Was quite hard to swallow,”
Said Jordan. ”This time YOU get burned!”
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