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Yep.

Gotta take my toupe' off for Furyk. He didn't blink down the stretch admist that run from Tiger.

Good tourney.

14nSome mentioned Tiger charging, and then fading of late. It's a good point, but then I think about how many times Jack Nicklaus was a runner-up, and it shows how hard it is to win, and how important it is to give yourself chances to win, which Tiger is doing of late. It's a good sign of things to come (see avatar... haha)

My concern, as a Tiger fan, is how his bogeys seem to come in pairs. That can certainly stall a charge. At the Masters this year, he had back-to-back bogeys late, but survived. At the US Open and also today, same thing, but the back-to-back bogeys were his undoing. I view Tiger as the most focused athlete I have ever seen, but it seems like he has trouble bouncing right back from a bogey. It's almost as though he is still seething, and it's affecting his next hole. Any thoughts on that?

Yeah 14and18, it is sorta odd that when he makes one, he tends to make more than one in a row....but then again he's had a lot of birdie runs this year to help. He's just being outplayed down the stretch a few times, which is to be expected in any athletic venture. His slow starts have also been problematic, but I'm expecting he'll figure out a way to put four rounds together here in one of his next few events and when he does, an impressive win will result I believe. :nodsmiley

BTW, I was looking pretty prophetic there for a bit today....but sorry CBC for misleading you there. Furyk played tough and it's nice to see him in the winner's circle again.

As far as that second consecutive bogey...he went aggressively at the front pin and came up a few feet short landing near the lip of the bunker. Unfortunately it rolled back in an extremely awkward position(ball way below his feet as he was standing outside of the bunker) and he flubbed it trying to get cute. He got the next one up and down. If he was leading..I garuantee you he wouldn't have gone for that pin. He felt like he had to at the time, IMO.

IMO, I think he also got somewhat stiff waiting around for the guys on 15 to tee off. Something tells me if he was leading or tied, instead of 3 or 4 back at the time and somewhat deflated...he would have gone threw his routine for the shot. Instead he looked like he somewhat rushed the shot that required all of his attention.

As far as seething over a bogey affecting the next hole...I guess you could make a case for 17 and 18 at Augusta and 16 and 17 at Pinehurst...and possibly today.

But personally, I've always admired his ability to grind it out and focus even after a bogey. Or better yet, focus on having to make a 10 footer for bogey. He's made a ton of those throughout his career, especially when leading on Sunday.

Interesting question though.

I think we can all agree that although Tiger did mess up with the 2 bogeys in a row, one of them was b/c of a good golf shot that wasn't quite long enough. The other was just a dumb 3-putt, which he had 2 of those in the round today. I think we can also agree that his start to this tourney is what killed his chances. You can't spot a great golfer like Jim Furyk 9 shots after the first round, unless of course you're playing on Tiger's 2000 level (which he is not). If he had shot just a normal round (2 or 3 under) in the first round, he would have won the tourney IMHO (although Furyk likely wouldn't have thrown that one shot away on the 17th).

I don't understand the questioning of Tiger's game right now! He's flat out playing awesome. What do people expect of this guy?! Tiger in 2005 has done the following through June:

1. Won 3 times.
2. Placed in the top 3 seven times (that's more than half of the events he's played in!).
3. Pocketed $5,340,289 in prize money.
4. Is 2nd on the money list, only fractionally behind Vijay even though Vijay's played 20 events and Tiger's only played 13 events.

Why criticize him when he's doing that!?

Reading the messages on this subject more thoroughly, I see that nobody was really criticizing Tiger, just saying that he could play slightly better, if that. Most appear to agree that Tiger is playing remarkably well, as his results have shown.

I see so much Tiger-bashing that after briefly scanning this subject I jumped to the conclusion that he was being bashed again. My bad.

Dave

dave, dave, dave...can't you see Tiger isn't playing well? It took him a playoff to win the Masters. It was only his 4th Masters title. It had been three years since he last won that tournament. For crying out loud, all he could muster was a mediocre 71 in the final round after shooting 66-65 in one day.

And he didn't even win the US Open! All he could muster was a second place finish behind a guy who couldn't miss a putt all weekend.

Most of all, losing to Jim Furyk? With that quirky swing? Getting second place again? It's almost more than a man can bear.

And the sarcasm police come to escort me away...