Reaction to Graeme McDowell's brilliant playoff win over Tiger Woods has been met with open mouthed amazement across the board today, but if you are surprised you haven't been paying attention.
In case you missed the highlight package, GMac shot a -3 69 to Woods +1 73 to overcome Tiger's 4 shot lead. He sank a monster 30 footer on 18 with Tiger only 5 feet away to send what had become match play into a playoff, then did it again on the first playoff hole while Tiger missed his 15 footer...
He made all that possible with an all world bogey 4 at the par 3 17th when he hit it into an unplayable, took a drop with a blind shot from the elevated 9th tee to 10 feet, then holed it !!
1 2 Graeme McDowell -3 F -16 66 69 68 69 272
42 2 1 Tiger Woods 1 F -16 65 66 68 73 272
6 3 3 Paul Casey -3 F -12 73 65 69 69 276
36 4 T4 Rory McIlroy -4 F -11 66 70 73 68 277
18 5 T4 Hunter Mahan -3 F -10 72 67 70 69 278
38 T6 T10 Stewart Cink -5 F -9 69 75 68 67 279
39 T6 T8 Ian Poulter -3 F -9 72 67 71 69 279
3 8 T4 Luke Donald 2 F -5 70 66 73 74 283
17 T9 T10 Zach Johnson E F -4 75 67 70 72 284
47 T9 T4 Sean O'Hair 3 F -4 72 67 70 75 284
1 11 12 Jim Furyk E F E 72 73 71 72 288
7 12 13 Steve Stricker -1 F 1 72 76 70 71 289
12 13 T8 Nick Watney 8 F 2 72 67 71 80 290
20 T14 T17 Camilo Villegas -2 F 3 70 75 76 70 291
22 T14 T14 Bubba Watson E F 3 76 69 74 72 291
5 T16 T17 Dustin Johnson -1 F 4 69 72 80 71 292
41 T16 T14 Anthony Kim 1 F 4 79 66 74 73 292
2 18 16 Matt Kuchar 3 F 7 75 71 74 75 295
So why all the shock ??
This is not the Tiger of old, despite the fact he posted 3 nice rounds 65,66,68 on a course he obviously enjoys having won here 4 times before. To automatically expect he would walk away with his first " win" albeit nothing more than an exhibition means you had forgotten how poorly he has played all year and is also disrespectful to Graeme McDowell who's dream season just doesn't seem to sink in on this side of the pond. Tiger doesn't scare anyone anymore, especially not Graeme McDowell
While Tiger has been splitting his time between practising and playing daddy with Sam and Charlie, McDowell has been battling his way right down to the wire with Martin Kaymer around the far and middle east in the Race to Dubai where he eventually finished 2nd.
I'm proud of myself the way I've applied myself the last six weeks. It would have been pretty easy just to kick back with the great things I've achieved this year. But to finish as strong as I have and to win twice in the last six weeks, I'm very proud of myself."
* He is your US Open champion
* He did sink the putt at the Ryder Cup to break the hearts of Tiger and the US team and to secure his place forever in Ryder Cup history. Handling that pressure makes putts like those he made again yesterday much easier.
* here are his results in the last 6 weeks
Chevron World Challenge 5/12/10 1
World Championship 28/11/2010 13 € 84,662.44 72 73 69 68 282 -6
UBS Hong Kong Open 21/11/2010 5 € 76,689.34 65 65 63 68 261 -19
Barclays Singapore Open 14/11/2010 3 € 240,907.10 65 68 68 70 271 -13
WGC - HSBC Champions 07/11/2010 34 € 36,556.52 74 71 73 69 287 -1
Andalucia Valderrama Masters 31/10/2010 1 € 500,000.00 68 67 72 74 281 -3
*At the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and was ranked Number One Collegiate Golfer in the United States and out of 12 starts won an incredible six events with a stroke average of 69.6 – beating the previous best returned by Luke Donald and Tiger Woods.
* he is ranked #7 in the world and we all know that Tiger is as much a world #2 right now as I am..
Tiger to be fair knows better than any of us where he stands both as a man, and for this discussion as a golfer. That's why he said afterwards that he was pleased with the way he had played this week, his game is still a work in progress..
The sooner all of you who are shocked by his loss last night realize that the better..
Bryan Angus
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