Monday, August 21, 2000
Woods wins PGA Championship in playoff
with May
By Howard Richman
Knight Ridder Newspapers
(KRT)
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — As he watched the drama unfold from the
locker-room TV early Sunday evening, golfer Stewart Cink told
the person he was talking to on the phone exactly what 30,000
rowdy people outside were thinking.
“This is the most unbelievable major I've ever seen,”
Cink said.
The eventual champion, Tiger Woods, and a little-known journeyman,
Bob May, battled shot for shot down the stretch in the final round
of the 82nd PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club. At every turn,
Woods and May produced shots that juiced the crowd in a fashion
May could hardly fathom. The noise overwhelmed May, who had never
seen anything like this before.
“It's tough out there,” May said. “I turned to
Tiger, and I said, `Is this what you get every week?' He said,
`You've got it.' “
If May wasn't prepared for it, Woods certainly knows the drill.
Both he and May put on a show that raised the roof.
“That's as good as it gets right there,” Woods said.
Not in Woods' case. He just seems to get better every time we
see him. And, as usual, Woods was the best man.
The PGA of America established a new playoff format, but it couldn't
have had a clue it would be this thrilling. Woods got a birdie
on the first hole of the three-hole stroke-play playoff and made
it stand in beating May by 1 shot.
It was Woods' third major championship of the year. The victory
was worth $900,000, raising Woods' earnings this year to nearly
$9 million.
Winning three majors in the same year is very rare, and Woods
joins some exclusive company by doing it. Only Ben Hogan in 1953
was able to pull it off. Woods has won four of the last five majors,
and his five major victories mean he's only 13 behind Jack Nicklaus'
career record of 18.
“You have to have your `A' game on every shot when you play
Tiger,” said Tom Watson, who shot a 68 Sunday and tied for
ninth.
Woods said: “We played probably one of the best duels in
major championship golf. Granted, there've been some great ones.
But we both shot 31 on the back nine.”
Since his victory in the PGA Championship last year, Woods has
won 14 of 25 events worldwide. He is the first player to win back-to-back
PGA Championships since Denny Shute in 1936-37. In the four majors
this year, Woods played them in 53 under par in regulation.
Woods got to the playoff by shooting a 5-under-par 67. May was
1 shot better with a 66. Their 18-under-par 270s set the PGA Championship
record of lowest score in relation to par, but this one wasn't
over at the 72nd hole. It might have been, though, if Woods hadn't
rallied. May led Woods by 1 stroke on the 71st hole, but Woods
knocked a 60-degree sand wedge to within 2 feet, sank the birdie
putt and pulled even.
May, 31, was the junior-golf phenom in Southern California before
Woods came along.
“I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but in articles, Tiger
used to say he wanted to beat Bob May's records,” May said.
Although it was a dead heat, May didn't let Woods off the hook.
Woods needed a response after May drained a slow-rolling 12-foot
birdie putt from the fringe at No. 18 in regulation. Woods, facing
a 5-footer to take it to a playoff, saw his ball hit the left
edge and circle into the cup.
The outcome was settled on the first of three playoff holes. At
the 444-yard, par-4 16th, Woods hit a 7-iron second shot from
196 yards out to within 20 feet and sank the putt for a birdie.
May, as he did all day long, nearly pulled even. Facing a chip
from 50 yards, May rolled his third shot onto the green to within
4 inches. But it wasn't good enough as he settled for a par. On
the par-4 17th, May made a 5-foot putt that matched Woods' par.
And at the par-5 18th, May hit his third errant tee shot of the
playoff but almost pulled off a miracle. He needed to because
Woods played a beauty of a fourth shot from the greenside bunker
to within a mere 6 inches. May had a 30-foot putt for birdie from
below the swale, and it broke left just inches from the cup. After
he tapped in for par, Woods stood over his putt, went to work
and closed the deal in a manner only he knows how to do anymore
when it comes to majors.
“What he did the last two days, being out of sync with his
swing, that's when you have to have heart,” said Butch Harmon,
Woods' swing guru. “And he has it because he had to scratch
and fight.”
May may have been the runner-up, but he walked away full of pride.
“I proved to a lot of people I could play under the heat,”
he said.
Woods, now 5-1 in playoffs, proved again that he plays a different
game than everybody else.
“That was an incredible battle out there,” Woods said.
“We never backed off from each other. That was fun.”
(c) 2000, The Kansas City Star.
Visit The Star Web edition on the World Wide Web at http://www.kcstar.com/
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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