The 2011 Players Championship was one heck of a tournament. It was a crazy, wild championship with all sorts of storylines. Here is my countdown of the Top 10 most significant / surprising / interesting things that happened this week.
Before we get to the countdown, here are some things that didn't make it to the Top 10 but were worth mentioning.
- In the second round on the 5th hole, Mark Wilson called a one-stroke penalty on himself because he suspected that he hit the ball twice while chipping it. Nobody else suspected it but he called the penalty anyway. That proved to be costly for him, because he missed the cut by one stroke.
- During the third round's Saturday telecast, there was a video footage of a turtle on the 16th hole, and the turtle performing a dive into the water hazard right of the hole. Entertaining stuff.
- In the first round, Ben Crane caught a good break at the 17th hole island green. The ball bounced off the wooden border surrounding the green and landed on the dry land on the other side of the water. His second shot is a tricky pitch that has to carry water and land on the green. However, it hit the wooden border again. This time it bounced forward and landed 50 feet away from the hole. He two-putted for a crazy bogey.
Now, here below is the Top 10 countdown.
10: Moved-up tees for the 13th and 17th holes for the final round. This was a weird move by the PGA Tour officials. These two were supposed to be very difficult holes, but moving up the tees took away a lot of bite. The announcers said that this is probably because they were tired of seeing all the train wrecks and double bogeys and wanted to give players opportunities to make birdies instead. I disagree with this decision however; I would have liked to see more challenge and difficulty.
9: Phil Mickelson's non-factor week. High inconsistency has plagued him for the week. On Thursday, he eagled 11 but followed up with a double bogey on 13. Then on Friday, he started on the back nine, and fired a 5 under par 31 for that nine hole stretch to rocket himself into contention. Only to totally give away what he had built up with a front nine 4-over-par 40.
8: Ian Poulter's sprint to the finish. Because of the storm delay in the third round, play was halted for 4 hours, so a lot of groups were unable to finish their third round on Saturday. When Ian Poulter saw that it was getting dark, he desperately tried to finish his round on time so he could sleep in and didn't have to wake up early just to finish one hole. Here's what he did: He hit his tee shot on the 17th, and then ran as fast as he could onto the green. He quickly made his two-putt par, and then ran up to the 18th hole and caught up to the group ahead of them. He ended up finishing the round just in the nick of time. He was criticized by Johnny Miller though.
7: David Toms's unforced errors late in the day. He bogeyed the 16th hole when he tried to go for the green, and then he missed a 5 foot par putt on the playoff. That was painful to watch, especially because I am a HUGE David Toms fan. Though, I thought his decision to go for the green in 2 on the 16th hole was totally justified. Toms had a great lie in the intermediate rough, and he had a hybrid for his second shot. Toms has hit his hybrid club very well all week, and the shot fit his left-to-right shot shape, so it was easy to justify the reasoning behind him choosing to go for the green. He probably just over-faded the shot a little bit, and the wind might have caught it a bit, resulting in it going in the water. 90% of the players probably would have gone for the green, though.
6: Rory Sabbatini defends Byrd for his slow play. This was one of the oddest moves by Sabbatini because he is notorious for being one of the players most frustruated with slow play. He was the same guy who tried to ditch Ben Crane at the 2005 Booz Allen Classic (now known as the AT&T National) because Crane played so slow. Maybe it’s because he was trying to appeal his PGA tour suspension, because rumours speculated that he might have a 14-day suspension because he was seen yelling at a volunteer at the Northern Trust Open, and he got into a profanity-laced argument with Sean O’Hair at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. I don’t find his actions genuine because he hated slow play and now he’s defending someone for slow play. Appears like he’s a hypocrite to me.
5: Michael Bradley’s waterlogged driver. At the 7th hole of the second round, Michael Bradley hit an errant drive and threw his club. But he didn’t know there was a water hazard to the immediate left of the tee box, so when his driver went left, it fell into the water. A fan was actually nice enough to help Bradley retrieve the driver by going into the water to get it, with Michael Bradley’s assistance. In return, the fan got a glove with Bradley’s signature on it. Although Bradley’s driver was rescued, he would make triple bogey on that hole and miss the cut by one stroke.
4. Nick Watney’s missed opportunities. Nick Watney blew a lot of opportunities to win because he missed a lot of makeable putts and hit a lot of errant drives. He made a total of 21 birdies and one eagle for the week. That alone is 23 under par, and it could have been a walk-away win for him. Instead, he also made 9 bogeys and 2 double bogeys. Had Watney minimized his mistakes, this would be an EASY win for him.
3: Charley Hoffman’s continuous love/hate relationship with TPC Sawgrass. In the first round Charley Hoffman was so frustruated, he broke the putter with his bare hands. Happened after he missed a 2 foot par putt on the last hole. One can tell that day was a tough day for him, because according to pgatour.com’s shot tracker, he missed SEVEN putts under 11 feet. He played well in the next three rounds, until he got to the 17th hole. That’s when he quadruple-bogeyed the island green hole, which cost him more than $400,000. Side note: This is the same guy who opened with a 9 on his first hole in the 2007 Players. Also the same guy who threw his putter into the water in 2008 when he three-putted from five feet.
2: Tiger Woods’s withdrawal from the Players. This was a withdrawal that came out of nowhere, in my opinion. During his practice rounds on Tuesday and Wednesday, Woods appeared to be just fine, and he appeared to be in good spirits, with his knee no longer an issue. But on Thursday, the knee started bothering him again, and he hit really poor iron shots en route to a front nine 42. His front nine 42 included two water balls on the 4th hole and he had to make a 20 foot putt just for a triple bogey. So after playing poorly on the front nine, he withdrew. A lot of people thought that his knee was all better because of the way he looked so happy during his practice rounds. Very surprisingly, it did not. It’s surprising how Tiger used to have so much endurance as evident in the 2008 US Open, but now his body seems so fragile.
1: Graeme McDowell and Lucas Glover’s collapses. At one point McDowell had a 3-stroke lead. But he ended up with a T-33 finish, 8 shots back. At one point Glover was 1 back of the lead with 21 holes to play. But he played those 21 holes 10 over par, en route to a T-50 finish, 12 shots back. Those two collapses also came out of nowhere. Both players seemed to be in total control of their game for the first 50 or so holes. But the last 20 or so holes made all the difference. McDowell’s collapse originated from probably one of the worst breaks in Players Championship history. On the final hole of the third round, McDowell aimed for the front-right pin location for his approach shot. However, his shot bounced off the mounds and the ball dove left. The ball rolled so far left that it rolled all the way off the green and into the water, resulting in a double-bogey. He was still tied for the lead after 5 holes into the final round but an errant tee shot on the 6th hole killed his momentum and he wasn’t able to recover from it. Glover’s final round collapse originated in the third round’s 16th hole, when he hit his second shot so thin that it didn’t come close to clearing the water, resulting in a double-bogey. Then he compounded his mistakes on the 18th hole when he duck-hooked his tee shot into the water. He never recovered in the final round.
And that concludes the Top 10 countdown of the most surprising / interesting/ significant things that happened at the Players Championship.
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