PGA Tour Waste Management Phoenix Open final scoreboard https://www.pgatour.com/leaderboard.html
It never seems to fail, a player goes into Sunday with a 5 shot lead having played flawless golf all week, seemingly insurmountable, then the tables turn and he/she either blows the lead and loses, or stumbles and eventually staggers across the finish line much to their relief.
The latter was the case in my opinion with Rickie Fowler who'd shot meticulous rounds of 64 65 64 going into Sunday, but after standing on the 11th fairway up by five he chipped strongly onto the green and watched in amazement as it rolled over the green, around the bunker and into the water. He took a normal drop, walked up to survey his approach and turned to watch his ball roll back into the water..!! Lying 5 he chipped to 16 feet and made that putt for the bad luck triple bogey 7 which he followed with a bogey at the 12th and his lead was gone to be replaced by South African Branden Grace.
Rickie stumbled to +3 74 which included to his credit 2 birdies at 15 and 17 to seal the deal on his Sunday rollercoaster ride with a 2 shot victory, his 5th.
His playing partners helped his cause as neither could mount a challenge, Matt Kuchar shot 75 to end up 4th, Justin Thomas, his roomie, shot 72 to end up 3rd while Grace who found the water at the 18th finished 2nd with his -1 69.
It was a windy, wet, cool, rainy day and we saw right away it wasn't going to be a day for low scoring. I watched Rickie's demeanour in his warm up and he seemed tense. I thought an early turning point came at the 3rd where he shanked his long iron approach and got a break when it settled wide right on a cart path. He chose to play off that lie, chipped on and made a gutsy 30 foot putt while Kuchar three putted his attempt to gain at least 2 shots and he never got closer.
Canadians David Hearn ended up T33 -6, Adam Hadwin T44 -5.
The PGA Tour sets off to California for the next two weeks, Pebble Beach and Riviera before the WGC in Mexico.
Bryan Angus
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