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PGA Tour & Golf News: Tiger Wins the Buick
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Tiger Finally Wins
By: Keith Dobkowski, Golf and PGA Tour News Writer
January 25, 2005
Much has been made of Tiger Woods inability to win recently. It
has been two years since Tiger won a Major, a year and half since
he won a stroke play tournament and just plain not the Tiger of
old. Critics are even pointing to Tiger’s win last weekend in the
Buick Invitational as un-Tiger-esque.
Yet that appears to be far from the truth. Tiger overcame a two
shot deficit with just six holes to play. When Tigers closest
competitors could not break par on Sunday, Tiger shot a 68. And
while Tiger’s second shot on the 72nd hole can be best described
as amateur-ish as it fell 20 yards short and 20 yards right, lucky
breaks have always been a part of golf.
Vijay Singh won his first PGA championship after his ball took a
fortuitous bounce out of a tree and next to the green during the
Sunday round. Freddie Couples won the Masters several years
ago when his ball miraculously stopped on a downhill slope into
the water on hole 13. And the reverse holds true as well as
Charles Howell learned on Sunday when his third shot on 18
landed in the cup only to bounce out and roll into the water. Thus
is golf.
If anything, Tiger’s win last weekend was exactly Tiger-esque.
Tiger did not play his best golf. Tiger came from behind. Tiger
played against one of the strongest field in golf on one of golf’s
longest and hardest tracks. And Tiger won ugly.
The ugly is exactly what causes concern for everyone else on the
tour. It is comforting when Tiger plays his best, a la the Tiger
Slam, and beats everyone handily. It is a different scenario when
Tiger is winning and not playing well. It is a scary scenario.
With just two tournaments under his belt, Tiger is leading the
money list, has a victory and a third place finish. Had he putted
well, Tiger would have two victories.
For the past year we have heard Tiger state again and again
about how close he was to being there. And while it is obvious
from his first two starts that Tiger is not there yet, it is frightening
that he has a third and first so far this season. Add in that Tiger
finished first in Dunlop Open and the Target World Challenge to
the end the 2004 year. That’s right, three victories in his last four
starts and he’s not there yet.
At this point the PGA Tour must be salivating. Singh is coming off
one of the all-time great years posting nine victories and a major
and has already won the Sony Open this year. Ernie Els has
finished in the top six in the first three stops of the year and is
coming off three wins as well as top ten finishes in each Major last
season. And fan favorite Phil Mickelson won twice last season
including his first Major while finishing 2nd, 3rd and 6th in the
three other Majors.
Include the now winning Tiger Woods and the PGA Tour is
heading into what may be its greatest season ever.
