PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. - K .J. Choi did all that was required of the winner at The Players Championship.
Not only did he hit the Green Island on the 17th hole at the TPC Sawgrass, he did three times in a day. With the tournament on the line, he obtained tumultuous under for by 80 feet on the final hole Sunday.
Despite all that Choi did win, the players Championship may be remembered as much for the way it has been lost.
David Toms, who reached a plugs 6 - iron and made a birdie from 18 feet on the hardest hole putt to force a playoff, missed a putt 3? feet by 17 to hand Choi, the biggest victory of his career.
"No excuses, no mark spike ball without marks, nothing," Toms said of his bogey three-putt on the first hole of sudden death playoff. "Maybe that much pressure." "But other that that, no there was no excuse."
On a hole designed to provide a large theatre - 17 Green Island - finishing fell flat.
The two players hit the green in the playoffs, and the advantage went Toms with a shot which is about 18 feet more far. Choi drags his putt birdie from long approximately 3 feet by the hole and Toms believed only to have a winner with his putt from 18 feet until he slipped by laminated cutting 3? feet by the Cup. In the grain, slightly upward, he is not hitting it solidly and missed.
Choi tapped in the putt and pumped his fist, but his heart felt for the 44-year-old Toms.
"As a player of colleagues, I felt very sorry for him," Choi said. "Because I know how that feels." And I felt bad for him. ?
Choi had reason to rejoice for his own prowess. Winless on the PGA Tour for three years, he took the outright lead with a birdie from 10 feet 17 in the regulations, registered by September 18 with a putt of just next to 5 feet to close with a 2-70 and kept its constant nerves.
The Korea of the South lived in Jacksonville briefly when he arrived in America and practised once at the TPC Sawgrass, although he said his game wasn't good enough then to break by.
Now, Choi is a champion of The Players, won the biggest event on the PGA Tour.
"For me to turn as each day on this course this week, it's like a miracle, to be honest with you," Choi said.
Choi won for the eighth time in his PGA Tour career, harvested the largest scholarship $ 1.71 million in the golf tournament, moved to no. 15 in the world and all but assured itself a place in the Presidents Cup team.
Toms, winless in five years, had an easy time with positive. He was the head of 36 holes, finished the round third rain delay Sunday morning only one ball behind and spent some five hours with his name at the top of the ranking in the final series.
And his birdie on the 18th century - one of the only four birdies on the toughest hole at Sawgrass last round - he hit 6 - iron to a clods of 18 feet and forced a playoff.
"It was the best putt I had an awful long time", said Toms.
Despite this, it is difficult to pass a pair of errors.
One came by-5 16, when he had a One-Shot forward on Choi and tried to reach the green in two. His approach found the water, and Toms wound up making bogey. It was the famous guy to lay the 18 by 4 at Atlanta Athletic Club when he won his lone major at the PGA Championship 10 years earlier.
TOMS was trying to put pressure on Choi.
"I thought that I could hit the shot," he said.
And then came the putt when part him already thought password on the second playoff hole decided the tournament. A consolation for Toms, with knowing that his game is close, is that he moved to no. 46 in the world and can avoid US Open qualification if it can stay there a week more.
TOMS also finished with a 70, join Choi in the playoffs at 13-under 275.
For many players felt that they also wasted chances, no more than US Open champion Graeme McDowell and Nick Watney.
McDowell, who had a One-Shot lead when the third round held Sunday morning due to rain delays, has lost its way after the fact of a tee wandering in the trees on the sixth hole. He hit four shots in the water the rest of the road, and closed with a 79.
Watney was in control late in the third round until, playing a stretch of three holes in 4-over par, then fell with consecutive turn bogies in the final round and could never catch up.
Paul Goydos, who has lost a match to Sergio Garcia in 2008 when the tour decided to make 17 of the first hole of the playoff, closed with a 69 to finish alone in third.
Luke Donald was never on the right track, but still managed a 71 for his seventh consecutive top 10. He shared fourth with Watney (71) and moved to no. 2 in the world, giving England the top two places in the world ranking.
Donald and McDowell wore a blue suit for all Navy in honour of Severiano Ballesteros - its famous Sunday color - who died last week.
TOMS took a share of the lead on the second hole and never towed until the finish line.
It is a long day for each of them - 32 holes for Toms, 27 holes for Choi, because the third delayed round rain which had to be completed Sunday morning.
A single shot by McDowell, with a wicked bounce, give the tone for the final round - for him and those chasing him.
With consecutive birdies in several collapses, McDowell suddenly had a three-shot lead as he closed the third round. Right rough on 18 September, his ball took a hard hop short of the green, made the slope with a speed and did not prevent roll until it was on the edge and into the water. After a fall, he has three launcher for double bogey back to 12-under 204.
This One-Shot lead did not last long, and neither has McDowell.
He drilled a putt of 50-foot birdie on no. 5 to catch the Toms and then collapsed with a tee shot into the trees on no. 6, a tee shot in the water on no. 7 and particular to try to blast off squarely behind a plant on the ninth. He made bogey on all of them, then dropped another blow in the water on the 13th, 17th and 18th.
What makes the three final holes so dramatic, it is that anything can happen. No one could suggest that would end as he has done.
Copyright 2011 by the Associated Press
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