Tiger Woods Goes Down

Relatively unknown South Korean golfer Y.E. Yang delivered a monumental upset on Sunday to defeat Tiger Woods and win the PGA Championship. Tiger Woods had been a perfect 14 for 14 in major championships when having the lead going into the final round. He had had won 36 of 37 of all tournaments when having the 54 hole lead with that 1 loss occurring in 1996 in one of his first tournaments as a pro. Tiger Woods came into the PGA Championship off tournament titles at the Buick Open and the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational the past 2 weeks. Tiger vaulted to the top of the leaderboard right away this week posting a 5 under 67 early Thursday afternoon. After Friday's 2nd round Woods had a 4 shot lead and Saturday and Sunday looked like they would just be an anticlimatic coronation for Woods and his record tying 5th PGA Championship win. Entering the final round Woods' lead had been trimmed to 2 shots, but it still seemed highly unlikely that he would relinquish the lead. Yet here was Y.E. Yang paired with Tiger Woods and able to stare Tiger down to become the first Asian to win a major championship.

Y.E. Yang is probably unknown to all except the big-time golf fan. This was only Yang's 2nd major championship appearance in the last 2 years; his other appearance was in this year's Masters where he failed to make the cut. Yang did win a PGA Tour event earlier this year at the Honda Classic in March, although that is a lightly regarded tournament that did not include many of the big names on tour. Yang also won an international event in 2006 at the HSBC Champions tournament in Shanghai where he outlasted Tiger Woods to mark his arrival on the world golf scene. I became familiar with Yang only over the past few weeks as he finished 8th at the Canadian Open, 5th at the Buick Open, and 19th at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.

Tiger Woods has been beaten in majors before as this was his 6th runner-up finish in a major championship, but nobody has had to play alongside Tiger to beat him. So many world class players have wilted playing under the glare and spotlight of a Tiger Woods pairing in the final round of a major. This is what makes Yang's achievement so incredible. Sunday's final round had so much of the drama that makes major championship golf so entertaining. The Woods-Yang duel was supposed to have included a 3rd man in the mix, but defending champion Padraig Harrington dropped out of contention with a quintuple bogey 8 on the par 3 8th hole after hitting it into the water twice. Yang was able to make up Woods' 2 stroke lead by the 4th hole and he would stay at least within 1 shot of Woods the rest of the way. Yang took control of the tournament on the 14th hole when he made the shot of the tournament, an incredible chip in from just off the green for eagle. That shot will probably go down as the most memorable shot in all of golf for 2009.

Yang would hold on to a 1 stroke lead and take it to the par 4 18th hole where he knocked his 2nd shot within 7 feet of the hole to all but clinch the victory and the big upset. Y.E. Yang played an outstanding tournament and rose to the occasion with the low round of the day on both Saturday (67) and Sunday (70). Woods on the other hand played poorly over the weekend. Woods played way too conservatively on Saturday with his 4 stroke lead when the Hazeltine course had low scores there for the taking. Woods did not attack the pins, seemingly content that avoiding the bogeys would be enough to pull out the victory. On Sunday Woods missed countless 10 foot putts and stumbled his way to a 3 over par round of 75. In the end Y.E. Yang was the best player of the week and he is a worthy PGA Champion. His dramatic conquering of Tiger Woods concludes what has been a very entertaining major championship season in 2009.

Other PGA Championship Observations:

• Lee Westwood had a strong showing in a major once again. Westwood finished 3rd this week to go along with a 3rd place finish at the Open Championship. You may remember that Westwood also finished 3rd at the US Open last year at Torrey Pines, narrowly missing a 15 foot putt on the 72nd hole that would've put him in the playoff with Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate. Westwood made the cut at all 4 majors this year, one of only 12 players that can make that claim. In my opinion, Lee Westwood is the best active player never to have won a major championship. At the age of 36 he should have several good opportunities ahead of him to win his elusive major title.

• In addition to Westwood, the other 11 men to make the cut at all 4 majors were Kenny Perry, Angel Cabrera, Vijay Singh, Jim Furyk, Rory McIlroy, Ross Fisher, Henrik Stenson, Camilo Villegas, Sean O'Hair, Graeme McDowell, and Kevin Sutherland.

• Phil Mickelson struggled for the 2nd week in a row in his return from a 6 week layoff. Mickelson finished in 73rd place at +12, twenty shots behind Y.E. Yang. This was after last week's WGC-Bridgestone Invitational where Phil was never in contention. I hope Phil can regain the form that saw him come so close to winning the US Open at Bethpage in June. The PGA Tour is more exciting when the fan favorite Mickelson is near the top of the leaderboard.