Waste Management Phoenix Open
Mark Wilson enjoyed his packers winning the Super Bowl and now he’s captured his second PGA tour win in just three starts. The country boy done good/Big Break contestant, Tommy “Two Gloves” Gainey was already leaking oil yesterday with back to back bogeys and never recovered. To add insult to injury, he saw his hopes for a solo third drown in the water on the drivable par 4 seventeenth. The seventeenth hole alone cost him a cool $200,000. Instead it was Jason Dufner, who rallied with birdies on sixteen and seventeen to force a playoff when Wilson missed a fifteen foot putt for birdie on eighteen for the outright win. Wilson eventually birdied the second hole of the playoff to seal the deal.
The real winner though was golf. There were many who said that this tournament should have been shortened to just fifty-four holes since it had been plagued with frost delays each of the first three days. As a result, the Waste Management Phoenix Open was behind the eight ball from the start. Subsequently, golf was played to sundown Sunday and thus emptying the stands for those who wanted to watch the Super Bowl. Rather than going to a Monday finish, those felt that the PGA could have made an early call and gone to a fifty-four hole finish and the tournament would have been completed before the Super Bowl.
If the PGA had shortened the tournament, they would have robbed the fans of drama that unfolded today. Jason Dufner’s two birdies to post eighteen under and was tied for the lead. Gainey continued to struggle and when he hit the ball in the water on the drivable par four seventeenth, he took his drop, and then proceeded to hit the ball in the water again. Nothing was more disheartening than when the mic caught him declaring “I blew this tournament.” Then there was Wilson, who was now struggling to stay tied for the lead with two holes left. On seventeen, he almost drove the ball too far, leaving him just a sliver of green to work with. His deft pitch raced to the back of the green where it stopped just before going over the cliff into the green side bunker, or worse, the water hazard. Instead, his birdie putt burned the edge and par was made. On eighteen, he narrowly missed the water down the left hand side of fairway and the ball bounded into the fairway bunker. He played a beautiful shot to fifteen feet and had a great look for the outright win. Again, he burned the edge and a playoff ensued.
On the first hole of the playoff, the eighteenth hole; both players block their shots to the right. Understandable for Wilson who nearly lost the tournament on the same hole in regulation, he wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice. Instead, Wilson hit it this time into the right side fairway bunker and Dufner found the rough. Dufner hit it to fifteen feet past the pin and Wilson left himself a putt from another zip code on the front edge of the green. Wilson got down in two putts as well as Dufner. On the second hole of the playoff (#10), Wilson striped his tee shot where Dufner found the rough again. Dufner hit to thirty feet but had a tricky downhill putt. Wilson on the other hand, stiffed his approach shot to ten feet. Dufner missed and Wilson made. The rest is history; one that would have never been if they had shortened the tournament to just 54 holes.
