Sergio Garcia outlasts Justin Rose to claim Masters, first major
Sergio Garcia won his first major title on Sunday by making a birdie on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff to beat Justin Rose at the Masters.
Playing Augusta National’s 18th hole in the playoff, Rose sent his tee shot into the trees to the right and was forced to punch out close to where Garcia’s tee shot ended up in the fairway.
Garcia’s approach came within 10 feet, and Rose followed to within 14. Rose missed the putt. Garcia stepped up and rimmed in a birdie putt for the victory.
Both players missed birdie putts on 18 in regulation, with Garcia’s a real dagger. He was 5 relatively flat feet away from his first major victory. Rose had slipped his putt past the hole from 7 feet.
Rose led by a stroke heading to 17, but he hit his approach shot into the greenside bunker and couldn’t get up and down. His bogey put both golfers at 9 under.
Garcia rallied to tie Rose for the lead with three holes remaining. He birdied the 14th hole and followed with an eagle on the par-5 15th after his approach shot caught the flagstick and stopped 15 feet away. The putt barely trickled into the cup for his first eagle in 452 holes at Augusta National.
Rose managed to make a birdie, but it wasn’t enough to keep the lead.
He reclaimed the lead at the 16th hole with a brilliant tee shot, which set up an 8-foot birdie putt that pushed his score to 10 under.
Garcia’s tee shot was even closer, curling back toward the pond before stopping 6 feet away. But the Spaniard pulled the putt and settled for a par that left him one stroke behind with two holes remaining.
How Tiger Woods, in his heyday, made golf cool by transcending it
Maybe it was those 350-yard drives and spontaneous, exuberant fist pumps.
Perhaps it was the big smile, athletic build and the brilliant marketing campaign that showed him doing everything from juggling golf balls with his club to walking on water. Then, too, there was that name — Tiger — and the fact he looked different than all the other golfers he was beating so regularly.
Whatever it was, Tiger Woods has been as much a cultural comet in professional golf as a victorious one. From the time he turned pro in 1996, and even past his last major victory at the U.S. Open in 2008, Woods drew mores eyes to him and his sport than any other golfer ever. In his prime, Woods turned tournaments into must-watch events, even for those who’d never teed up a golf ball.
He was compelling, a perfect blend of talent and charisma suited for a growing American diversity and the digital age. TV ratings, galleries and prize money all increased significantly. People had to watch. Woods dragged golf — a sport most Americans have never played — into the Land of Cool.
Among professional athletes for most of the early 2000s, Woods ranked with basketball icon Michael Jordan at the top of the Q Score, which rates popularity and marketing appeal. In 2008, Forbes ranked Woods No. 2 on its annual Celebrity 100 list, based on fame and money. Only Oprah Winfrey was higher.
Plus, he was making cultural as well as sports history. In 1997 at just 21, he stormed to a win at the Masters, shooting a record score and living up to years of hype. That it came at Augusta National, where African-Americans hadn’t been allowed to play until 1975, put him in a special place. The attention just kept coming, with 13 other major victories — including four straight — and 79 total wins on tour.
“Tiger embodied a kind of modern cool that golf hadn’t seen before,” said Orin Starn, a professor of cultural anthropology at Duke University and author of the book “The Passion of Tiger Woods.” “This was to a certain degree, and still is, a bland, vanilla sport played by anonymous white guys who all dress the same and look the same. So to have this charismatic, young African-American-Asian-American hybrid figure bursting onto the scene made huge news.”
Rick Schloss, the former longtime media director of the annual PGA Tour event at Torrey Pines in San Diego, recalled how the galleries swelled when Woods came to the tour, attracting a younger element interested in one thing: Tiger.
“They’d go there to watch him,” Schloss said. “They don’t know what else is going on. They’ve got their Ugg boots on, the hats on backwards, they’ve got a craft beer, and they know he’s cool.”
In 2001, after he won four straight majors, Americans polled by Gallup named him as the nation’s No. 1 athlete. His favorability rating was on a par with the likes of Jordan, John Glenn, Colin Powell and Pope John Paul II.
Yet Woods slipped from that perch in 2009, when his off-the-course life turned upside down with a personal scandal that led to divorce. He took a leave from golf for several months. He lost sponsorships. When he returned, he wasn’t the same. His smile, swing and putting stroke were diminished.
His last tour win came in 2013, and he failed to reach the weekend at his only two starts in 2017, missing the cut at the Farmers Insurance Open in late January and withdrawing due to injury from a European Tour event after one round in Dubai a week later. He hasn’t played since.
Prior to that, Woods missed nearly a year and a half because of a back injury, although he did play the Hero World Challenge, an unofficial PGA Tour event that he hosts, in December.
In his absence, golf’s attendance and TV ratings suffered.
Now 41, Woods has skipped three 2017 tournaments (the Genesis Open, Honda Classic and Arnold Palmer Invitational) that he typically plays each year, and his next move remains unknown. He even WD’d from a news conference prior to the Genesis Open, which is run by the Tiger Woods Foundation.
Woods hasn’t given up hope of making what would surely be a dramatic return at next week’s Masters. Starn, for one, is looking forward to seeing Woods back inside the ropes.
Said Starn: “There’s always interest in a comeback story in America.”
TIGER’S CELEBRITY PRECEDED HIM to the PGA Tour. He was a child prodigy, a standout at Stanford and a six-time USGA national champion (three U.S. Junior Amateurs and three U.S. Amateurs). He and other celebrities from the sports and entertainment world were like magnets, attracting one another. He lived in a different, more star-studded world than golf’s other top players.
Woods appeared on the sidelines at NFL and basketball games. He played golf with Jordan, Charles Barkley and Tony Romo. He hung with Mark Cuban, Michael Phelps, Jon Bon Jovi, Sting and Will Ferrell. Each year, the Tiger Jam fundraiser for his Tiger Woods Foundation in Las Vegas delivered the celebs. It all brought more attention to golf and the tournaments he played.
Chris Zimmerman, the former director of advertising for Nike and then the company’s general manager for golf, was there when Woods turned pro and signed a $40 million sponsorship deal with the company. From the outset, he said, those around Woods were intent on making him more than just the best golfer of his generation.
“From day one, they had interest in what Tiger could be as an athlete, but also as a brand,” said Zimmerman, now the president and CEO of business operations for the St. Louis Blues. “That’s a tall order for a 21-year-old coming out of a few years at Stanford. But he had been on a path toward greatness from an early age, and certainly both his dad and the people around him, they were very clear that they believed Tiger Woods could be a great brand, much in the same way that Michael Jordan had been.”
The first Nike TV commercials in 1996 to introduce Woods to viewers were “Hello, World” and “I am Tiger Woods.” Each told stories. The first was about his commitment to golf and his road to the tour. The second, his roots and connection to a new, diverse generation. Zimmerman says the intent was never to make Tiger cool — above the rest — but to show his respect for the game and help Nike launch its golf equipment business.
When Woods’ style and personality meshed with his wins and the acceptance of Nike’s products, the ad campaign helped catapult him into the Jordan realm.
“That’s where the magic is,” Zimmerman said.
The most memorable commercial was itself enchanting, a 1999 spot in which Woods juggled a ball on a clubface for nearly 30 seconds while switching hands, going between his legs and behind his back before popping the ball into the air and knocking it down the driving range with a baseball swing.
While many top golfers can do the same thing, Average Joe and Jane watching at home didn’t know that. Tiger, it seemed, could do anything.
“It was an exceptionally successful commercial,” Zimmerman said. “It just fascinated people. They wanted to know if it was real, had he really done that.”
Those commercials helped him vault from athlete to cultural icon, according to Donna Barbie, professor of humanities and communication at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida and editor of the book “The Tiger Woods Phenomenon,” a collection of essays.
“His dad and his companies were marketing geniuses,” Barbie said. “Has there ever been a golfer who was so marketed as Tiger Woods?”
Barbie, who studies cultural phenomena, said Woods was a “change agent” for golf, bringing it further into the mainstream and boosting TV ratings, attendance and earnings. Even the golf video game that bore his name was popular with young gamers.
“They would never have dreamed of playing golf, of all things, in some software, electronic format if it hadn’t been for Tiger Woods,” she said. “I can guarantee that.”
His presence on tour was a signal that golf had changed and that younger players would have to change, too, to compete.
“It’s not old men in weird plaid pants anymore,” Barbie said, laughing. “It’s young, vibrant athletes who can show their athleticism.”
The fact Woods was built like an athlete — and trained like one — made him stand out among fellow golfers, Barbie contended. So did his heritage, his talent and his bearing. He wasn’t the everyman, eye-contact, hand-shaking Arnold Palmer who brought fans to the game in the 1950s and ’60s. Woods was more focused and aloof on course, making him both “cool and compelling.”
“He was not one of the people,” Barbie said. “But he caused people to want to participate and witness greatness. … They love Tiger Woods because he was above it, because he was on the pedestal. We really love to look up to people who are larger than life.”
Barbie, a lifelong golfer, often followed Woods on the PGA Tour, watching his fans as much as she watched him. They always expected to see him to do the unexpected. Usually, he did.
She recalled Woods one year at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill contemplating whether to go for a green over water or lay up.
“He’s holding a wood and everyone’s going, ‘Yeah, he’s going to go for it,'” she said. “And then he puts the wood away and brings out the iron, and there was a groan by the gallery, just a groan, like, ‘Really? You’re going to disappoint us?’ And then he takes out the wood and goes for it and gets it, and everybody is ecstatic.
“That’s what cool is.”
CHRIS RILEY PLAYED AGAINST Woods as a junior and in college before both turned pro in 1996. While Woods went straight to the PGA Tour, Riley got there in 1999, eventually advancing to No. 22 in the Official World Golf Ranking and playing with Woods and Team USA in the 2004 Ryder Cup.
Riley said Woods “transcended the game” and helped lift the image of golf, which was “nerdy” when he played as a boy but now is considered a “cooler game.”
“No doubt,” Riley said. “At sports bars now, people will watch golf, especially if Tiger is playing. Even if he’s not playing. But pre-1996, nobody watched golf unless you were a golfer.”
Plus, Riley said, Woods impacted the sport with his dedication to fitness, prompting other golfers change their training habits to keep up.
“You don’t see the guys anymore, the Tim Herrons, going to have a beer or a cocktail after the round,” he said, referring to the tour veteran nicknamed “Lumpy.” “They go to the gym to get a massage, work with their trainer.”
It’s not hard to see how Woods’ influence on the game has rubbed off on the current wave of top talent led by Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Jason Day, Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas. However, Tiger’s impact off the course might be only as effective as his game. As his play has gone downhill, so has the sport’s popularity as recreational activity.
According to the National Golf Foundation, participation in golf surged as Tiger surged, but it has slowed or declined in recent years by measurements such as number of public courses, golfers, annual rounds played and youth participation (although not among girls and women).
The equipment business Nike had built around Woods suffered, too, and last year the company announced it would no longer sell golf clubs, balls and bags.
“Tell me if I’m wrong, but I think he made it cool to watch and not really to play,” Riley said.
Starn sees the same thing. Tiger’s magnetism was a boon to the tour, but it might not have the lasting effect the sport had anticipated. Without Woods in recent years, Starn said the tour lacks a dynamic sense of excitement.
“But I do think Tiger generated a kind of excitement around golf that was unprecedented,” Starn said.
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Rickie Fowler wins Honda Classic to end PGA Tour drought
PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — Rickie Fowler didn’t care about pretty. He cared about winning.
Staked to a 4-shot lead, Fowler hit one putt into a sprinkler hole and a tee shot into the water. But when his lead was cut to 1 shot, Fowler answered with two big birdie putts to regain control and finished off a 4-shot victory in the Honda Classic.
The bogey-bogey finish kept him from setting the 72-hole record at PGA National.
That wasn’t important. At his feet was a crystal trophy, something he hasn’t owned in 13 months, even as peers Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and Rory McIlroy kept piling them up. It was Fowler’s turn Sunday.
“Whether I’m talked about with those guys or not, I just want to play the best that I can and keep pushing myself and, ultimately, just keep trying to put myself in position to win and start collecting more of these,” Fowler said, tapping the trophy.
He closed with a 1-over 71 for a 4-shot victory over Gary Woodland, the only player to seriously challenge him, and Morgan Hoffmann.
Fowler faced the strongest wind of the week at PGA National, and he didn’t feel as though he had control of his swing the way he did all week. But the 28-year-old kid with fashion flair still has a knack for clutch moments, whether it was the 30-foot birdie putt on No. 8 or the two winning moments: a 40-foot birdie putt on No. 12 and a 25-foot birdie putt on the 13th.
This was more substance than style.
“I didn’t play great,” Fowler said. “It wasn’t a pretty round. But we got the job done. A win is a win.”
Fowler effectively ended it with a shot over the water on the 16th to 3 feet that stretched his lead to 5 shots with two holes to play.
Woodland appeared to have second place wrapped up until he three-putted the 17th and then tried to lay up on the par-5 18th and came up short into the water. He closed with another bogey for a 69. He had to share second place — the difference of $128,000 — with Hoffmann, who missed a 4-foot birdie putt on the 18th.
PGA champion Jimmy Walker was lurking on the fringe of contention until tee shots into the water on the 15th and 17th holes, which cost him five shots.
Tyrrell Hatton of England, who played in the final group in his first PGA Tour event in Florida, was out of the picture quickly. He still had a chance to finish alone in second, which would have gone a long way toward securing a PGA Tour card, until he missed a 3-foot birdie putt on the 17th.
Fowler even got into the act when it no longer mattered. He hit his tee shot into the water on the 17th hole and made bogey, then hit a wedge into the bunker on the 18th and closed with another bogey to finish at 12-under 268.
Fowler jokingly referred to his “small collection” of trophies on Saturday evening, though it was important. He had gone 13 months and 25 starts worldwide without a victory as everyone around him was winning multiple times.
It was his first PGA Tour victory since the Deutsche Bank Championship in September 2015. A 4-shot lead, which he built with two late birdies Saturday afternoon, allowed him to play smart and safe.
It just always didn’t work out that way.
He went over the green on the par-4 fourth and tried to putt it up the slope, except that it went into a sprinkler hole and led to bogey. Two holes later, Fowler hooked his tee shot into the water on the tough par-4 sixth and made double bogey.
He bounced back with a 30-foot birdie putt on No. 8, only to drop another shot on the ninth.
Woodland hit wedge into 4 feet on the 13th for a birdie to get to 10 under, suddenly one shot back of Fowler. Just like that, it was over. Fowler leaned over on his putter as he watched his 40-foot on No. 12 drop into the cup, and though he went long with a wedge on the 13th, he dropped that one in from 25 feet for birdie.
Woodland had reasonable looks at birdie over the next four holes and couldn’t get any to drop. He powered his 20-foot attempt on the 17th about 6 feet by the hole, ending is last hope.
“I thought all of them looked pretty good,” he said of his birdie chances. “It was a little deflating on 18. Thought I hit a pretty good drive and thought I would have a chance, and I just couldn’t get home and laid up in the water, which was bad.”
Jhonattan Vegas made a hole-in-one on the 15th hole and closed with a 64 to tie for fourth.
Fowler’s victory and Woodland’s tie for second knocked Charles Howell III and Hudson Swafford out of the top 10 in the FedEx Cup standings, keeping them from qualifying for the Mexico Championship next week, the first World Golf Championship of the year.
TROON, Scotland — Henrik Stenson kept hitting the best shots of his life, one after another, because there was no other way to beat Phil Mickelson in an Open showdown that ranked among the best in golf.
Stenson shot an 8-under 63 on Sunday to finish the tournament at 20-under and claim his first major championship. He won Sunday’s matchup with Mickelson by 2 strokes and the Claret Jug by 3 over the American.
Stenson’s final stroke of this major masterpiece was a 20-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole at Royal Troon that tumbled into the cup on the final turn. His 63 matched Johnny Miller for the lowest closing round by a major champion.
“I didn’t know until they told me in the recorder’s hut,” Stenson said when asked if he knew that last putt was for 63.
Both Stenson and Mickelson played stellar golf, combining for an eagle, 14 birdies and two bogeys in the final pairing.
“Thank you very much for a great fight,” Stenson told Mickelson as he accepted the Claret Jug.
Stenson ended his winner’s speech on the 18th green by dedicating the victory to a close friend who died of cancer the day before The Open started.
“I feel like he has been with me all week. Mike, this one is for you,” said an emotional Stenson as he raised the Claret Jug one more time and kissed it.
Mike Gerbich was a pal of the Stenson and his wife Emma when they lived in Dubai. Gerbich and Henrik Stenson used to play golf together.
“I know he’s hurting inside,” Stenson’s caddie Gareth Lord said. “It’s a perfect way to say thanks.”
Stenson delivered a crushing blow to Mickelson’s chances of capturing a sixth major championship by making a 50-foot birdie putt from off the green at No. 15 that gave him a 2-shot lead with three to play. It was the first time all day the final group had been separated by more than 1 stroke.
The 40-year-old Stenson started walking when the putt was halfway there, stopping to pump his fist, rare emotion for the Swede with ice-blue eyes.
Mickelson narrowly missed an eagle putt on the 16th hole, and Stenson kept his 2-shot lead with an up-and-down for birdie from the deep rough.
“You know he’s not going to back down and he’s going to try to make birdies on every hole,” Stenson said. “So I just tried to do the same, and just delighted to come out on top and managed to win this trophy.”
Mickelson led only once, a two-shot swing on the opening hole. They were tied with five holes to play until Stenson made an 18-foot birdie on the par-3 14th and then buried Lefty with a putt that defined his moment as a major champion.
J.B. Holmes finished third. He was 14 shots behind.
“Those guys are playing a different golf course than everyone else,” Holmes said.
Stenson’s previous best finish in a major was a tie for second at the 2013 Open at Muirfield, which Mickelson won for his most recent major victory.
He gave Sweden a long-awaited major in men’s golf, 19 years after Jesper Parnevik lost a 54-hole lead at Royal Troon. Stenson said Parnevik sent him a message that said, “Go out and finish what I didn’t manage to finish.”
“I’m really proud to have done that, and it’s going to be massive for golf in Sweden with this win,” Stenson said.
Stenson’s total of 264 set a record for lowest score at a major. Stenson eclipsed the Open mark of 267 set by Greg Norman at Royal St. George’s in 1993 and the overall mark of 265 by David Toms at the 2001 PGA Championship. Stenson also tied Jason Day’s record for lowest score under par set last year at the PGA Championship.
“It’s disappointing to come in second, but I’m happy for Henrik,” Mickelson said. “I’ve always thought that he is one of the best ball strikers in the game and that major championships are perfectly suited for him. I knew that he would ultimately come through and win. I’m happy that he did. I’m disappointed that it was at my expense.”
For Mickelson, it’s an 11th runner-up finish at a major in his career. Only Jack Nicklaus, with 19, has more second-place results.
“It’s probably the best I’ve played and not won,” Mickelson said. “That’s probably why it’s disappointing in that I don’t have a point where I can look back and say, ‘I should have done that’ or ‘Had I only done this.’ I played a bogey-free round of 65 on the final round of a major. Usually that’s good enough to do it. And I got beat. I got beat by 10 birdies.”
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International Golf Federation president Peter Dawson announced Monday that Jordan Spieth has withdrawn from the Olympics.
Spieth, ranked No. 3 in the world, was projected to be the highest-ranked player on the American squad at Rio. He joins Dustin Johnson in withdrawing from the Olympics, and his spot will now go to world No. 15 Matt Kuchar.
Spieth’s decision means that each of the top four players in the world – Jason Day, Johnson, Spieth and Rory McIlroy – will all skip the Olympics.
IGF vice president Ty Votaw indicated that Spieth will address his decision during his press conference on Tuesday at the 145th Open, but indicated that his decision, like those of Day, Johnson and McIlroy, hinged largely on health concerns surrounding the Zika virus.
“He called us earlier today,” Votaw said. “In the phone call, it was out of concern for the health issues that we’ve been talking about.”
Dawson also noted that Korea’s K.T. Kim and France’s Victor Dubuisson have also withdrawn from Olympic consideration. They will be replaced in the 60-man field by Jeunghun Wang and Julien Quesne, respectively.
The Olympic men’s golf competition is scheduled for Aug. 11-14.
https://www.foxfiregolfclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/JOrdan-Speith.png426747Teesnap Developerhttps://www.foxfiregolfclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Website-Header-PC-New20-FINAL-M.jpgTeesnap Developer2016-07-11 15:09:292016-07-11 15:09:29Spieth withdraws from Olympics; Kuchar in