Seven-Stroke Win by Woods Appears to Set Him Up Well for P.G.A.
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Version 0 of 1. AKRON, Ohio — Tiger has passed Jack. Now, can he catch him? No, that is not a riddle that, answered correctly, will earn admittance to some secret golf society. Just acknowledgment that Tiger Woods’s victory Sunday at the Bridgestone Invitational was the eighth of his career at Firestone Country Club, moving him past Jack Nicklaus for the most PGA Tour titles at the course. The question on everyone’s mind after Woods finished strolling through his seven-stroke victory over Keegan Bradley and Henrik Stenson was whether he was back on track in his quest to equal or surpass Nicklaus’s record of 18 major championships. “Yeah, I’m looking forward to it,” Woods said. “Those are the events that we try to peak for and try to win.” Woods, who won the last of his 14 majors in 2008 at the United States Open, will get his next chance this week at the P.G.A. Championship in Rochester. He was asked if there were any parallels between where he was now and 2008. “No, zero,” Woods said. “I had a totally different swing back then compared to now.” Woods began a stress-free final round with nine consecutive pars, many on tap-in putts of a foot or less. A 7-foot birdie on the 10th hole pushed the lead to nine and left spectators joking about a 10-stroke mercy rule. He finished with a par 70, for a 15-under total of 265. It was exactly the kind of round that wins major championships. “You know that Oak Hill is going to be a golf course where we’re going to have to make a lot of pars, no doubt,” Woods said, referring to the site of the P.G.A. Championship. “If you have an opportunity to make a birdie, you’d better, because there aren’t a whole lot of opportunities.” The victory was Woods’s 79th, narrowing the gap with the PGA’s career leader, Sam Snead (82). He became the first golfer to win at least five tournaments in a season 10 times, extending his own record. Snead is next, with eight five-win seasons. Bradley, the defending Bridgestone champion, said he felt as if he won the tournament within the tournament. “It was a really weird feeling,” Bradley said. “Coming in second is a big accomplishment considering Tiger had such a big lead.” Bradley will be matched with Woods and Davis Love III in the first two rounds of the P.G.A. “You know, I hate to sit here and go on and on about how good he is, but he is,” Bradley said of Woods. Handicapping a major based on performance in the previous tournament can be risky. Woods has won four times (2000 United States Open, 2001 Masters, 2006 P.G.A., 2007 P.G.A.) after winning his previous start. In 16 other appearances in majors that followed a win in his last start, he did not win. Last month, Phil Mickelson won the British Open the week after a victory at the Scottish Open. Redemption has been a compelling story line in recent major tournaments. Mickelson’s British Open victory came after many observers had long been in agreement that his game was not suited for the links style of golf. He had missed the cut at the British Open more times (four) than he had top-10 finishes (two) before breaking through at Muirfield. Rory McIlroy’s 2011 United States Open title came in his first major after he shot an 80 in the final round of the Masters, where he led after three rounds. Adam Scott’s victory at this year’s Masters came nine months after he lost a four-stroke lead with four holes to play to hand the 2012 British Open title to Ernie Els. “I think it shows the true character of a lot of the guys out here,” said Scott, the 2011 Bridgestone champion. “We all understand the game of golf is cruel. Sometimes, when you think you’ve done everything right, it can rear its head up and put you back down. You have to use that as motivation. If you don’t, you can suffer for a long time.” Could that be a good sign for the Northeast Ohio favorite Jason Dufner? Dufner finished six under in a tie for fourth. He will have a chance at Oak Hill to make amends for his collapse in the 2011 P.G.A. Championship, in which he surrendered a five-stroke lead with four holes to play and lost a playoff to Bradley. “I’ve been close a couple of times since the P.G.A.,” Dufner said. “Obviously, that was my best chance. That’s what you’re striving for out here, to be competitive in those events and hopefully be able to hoist one of those trophies some day. Maybe the P.G.A. will be it this year.” Woods said the cool, daylong, 15- to 20-mile-per-hour breeze out of the Northwest was blowing in his favor. “Today was a day with it being as blustery as it was, it was going to be really hard for someone to shoot 62 or 63,” Woods said. “If I don’t give any shots away and played my game and shot even or better, I’d force these guys to go out and shoot something super-low on a golf course that wasn’t going to give it up.” The 2010 P.G.A. winner, Martin Kaymer, and the 2012 United States Open champion, Webb Simpson, shot four-under 66s. That great round got Kaymer to 11 strokes behind Woods. Simpson, the first-round leader, finished 13 back. Woods finished 49 strokes ahead of the Australian Daniel Popovic, who had a final-round 82 and was 34 over. |