Woods Outlasts Harrington to Win For 70th Time

Tiger Woods is two for two…and four for four.

After a four stoke victory over Padraig Harrington on Sunday at The Bridgestone, Tiger Woods won the second tournament of his three consecutive week run. That run comes to a mighty crescendo next week when Woods goes for his first major of 2009 at the PGA Championship at Hazeltine.

But Woods also won something else on Sunday, something that may not be a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but is still something to mention: The Major Tune-up Grand Slam. Woods has come out on top in each of his four final pre-major starts. But so far, it hasn’t worked out so well. What good is winning at The Arnold Palmer, The Memorial, or The AT&T National, if you toss up a dud when it really counts?

Usually that logic would be perfectly sound. But I think that this win for Tiger means a lot. After his disaster at The British, Tiger’s game was in as much flux as the best player in the world’s can be. He was struggling off the tee and looked to be mechanically out of sinc. But thanks to a summit with swing guru Hank Haney, Woods has seemed to have weathered another rain storm in his career in brilliant fashion.

As predicted, Sunday at The Bridgestone was about the battle between Tiger Woods and Padraig Harrington. Two players with multiple majors in their trophy cases. Two players who have experienced struggles at times this year. In the case of Woods, the struggles were isolated to one week in Scotland. In the case of Harrington, the struggles have been almost constant.

After a season of missed cuts and unimaginable frustration, Padraig Harrington finally found himself in a position to win on Sunday. It was a position that must have felt a little strange and nostalgic for the Irishman who has failed to qualify for the weekend seven times this season.

It looked like Paddy didn’t have enough to keep pace with Tiger on the front nine. Harrington didn’t make any mistakes, but he didn’t make any birdies either. When Tiger Woods is breathing down your neck, you can’t keep making pars and expect to keep the Tiger in his cage. It was only a matter of time before Woods took the lead. It looked like curtains for Paddy. Nice try, see you next time.

But than something strange happen. On the precipice of yet another kill, Tiger Woods let up. Consecutive bogeys on 15 and 16 found the two stars of the day tied at the top with four holes to play. A tournament once thought to be over now had a ton of juice. It was conceivable that one birdie on the final four holes could win the weekend.

Harrington put an end to that two holes later. At 16, Paddy’s magic ran out with a triple bogey that was downright painful to watch. After a Woods birdie on the same hole, the tournament was over.

The most interesting subplot to the triple at 16 was revealed during Tiger Woods’ press conference. Woods said that the two were put on the clock in the later stages of the round. This means that the group were told that they were playing too slow and may be fined and/or penalized if they did not speed up. Woods mused that Harrington may have hit a shot or two that he wouldn’t have otherwise if the players were given free range to play at their own pace.

This is funny because the round did seem to be going a bit slower than normal, but nothing that raised my eye in terms of “unusual”. I don’t understand why the last group of the day would be given this sort of warning. Who exactly are they “holding up”? The CBS Evening news?….Please.

For tournament officials to mess with a fantastic Sunday of golf is both mind-boggling and discouraging. Who knows if this played a major part in Padraig’s collapse on 16. But it would be extremely plausible to think that rushing players late on Sunday would affect a player who has struggled all season. Considering that no one has been penalized for slow play in 20 years, the timing of the warning was extremely poor.

Tigers win was more than just one more for the trophy case. The win was his 70th ever. This moves him into third place all time behind Sam Sneed and Jack Nicklaus .

But like anything in golf, Tiger is not measured by how many times you win at Bridgestone, Congressional, or any other non-major course. It’s what you do in Majors.

The final test in that regard comes next week for Woods.

Next Week: The PGA Championship- Major #4! It’s the last chance for Tiger to get one in ‘09. After missing the cut at Major #3, this would be a great story. This will also be the first major this season that Tiger hasn’t taken a week off. How will that affect him? We know that the weekend off didn’t treat him well last time….Look for full converge here and on wcwpsports.com all this week

Related posts:

1. Tiger/Harrington Round 2 May Come Sooner Than Expected
2. 2009 PGA Championship- The Preview Column
3. The Resurgence of Padraig Harrington
4. Tiger Hunt
5. Yang’s All Good; Upset At PGA