2009 PGA Championship at Hazeltine

[Cara1975]

This is fabulous! Yang went out there and gave Tiger respect but approached this round as if he was playing with any other golfer. Congrats to him, he deserves it.

[senorchipotle]

i told you haha

yeah, you did. i'd have never believed it though. damn.

[kafka01]

Awesome!!!!!!!!

[Cara1975]

Still can't believe it, someone came from behind and beat Tiger at a major. Can't wait for the President's Cup.

[TarDawg]

With all the talk about which of these young guns it would be to finally topple Tiger all it took was a 37 year old father of 5 to do it.

[kris]

Wow would never have believed it yesterday, heard his coach express full confidence in his guy and still didn't believe it. Well I was dead wrong. Tiger just seemed content with laying back during the last couple rounds until it was too late. obviously his putting was not helping him but still.

[zeg]

Wow. Exciting finish, but the last round was really disappointing to watch. Nobody put in much of a round and while Yang had a few great shots, he also put out some stinkers. It just seemed like watching the top of the field melt down all around and he was the least lame. Still, outplaying Woods in the last round is an amazing accomplishment!

[CG031]

Yang stepped up. Tiger was off his game. Yang deserved it.

[Titleist]

ye played very well and deserved to win. tiger essentially played scared in the last 2 rounds, coupled with worse than normal putting for him, sealed his fate.

[Acropo]

but the last round was really disappointing to watch.

I think you must have been watching something else, imho! The whole thing was very exciting, I thought.

Still, outplaying Woods in the last round is an amazing accomplishment!

Agree with that!

[iPutt]

I think the pressure to win another major will really tell on Tiger tomorrow and I predict a mild choke.

Bravo. I thought of you after it ended hahaha.

[Acropo]

What I was actually going to say was that I have been reading up on the history of golf and this strikes me as similar to a headline nearly 100 years ago - 1913, to be precise.

Francis Ouimet wins US Open.

Ouimet was an American and, while he wasn't the first to win the US Open, he did so against a field that included the best in the world - Vardon & Ray, the two top golfers at the time, came over specifically to reclaim the title from the upstart Yanks, whose representative (John McDermott) had won it the two years previously. But the real big guns hadn't been there.

His victory is said to have caught America's imagination and the number of golfers in the US tripled over the next 10 years. Walter Hagen won the following year and it was the start of American domination, which has continued - interrupted by the European 'golden era' in the 1980s/90s - ever since.

The Orientals have been knocking on the door for a while. Now, Yang has opened it. The Far East is the fastest-growing market for golf. Are we now going to see a seismic shift as great as that triggered by 1913?

Vardon was the Woods of his day - the dominant player in the world, an intimidating presence on the field. He had his challengers but always saw them off: until 1913.

Also worthy of note: the PGA Championship has always been regarded as 'very American' (N Faldo). The final leaderboard saw just two Americans in the top 5; five in the top 15 and 6 in the top 19. This looks like a real shift...but with 7 Europeans in the top 19 (five in the top 9) maybe the 'old world' will have something to say about the future of the game...

Interesting times!

[schutz23]

I have never seen Tiger miss so many easy putts in my life. Putting has been the reason for his struggles. Come on Tiger, putt us a major already!

[ArrrrJay]

The Orientals have been knocking on the door for a while.

Good post, just want to correct you on one thing...

Rugs and furniture are oriental. Humans are Asian, or Korean, Chinese, etc. Props to Y.E. I was rooting for him the entire day, the way he kept his cool and smiled after his worst of shots is how everyone should strive to play.

[PrairieParson]

I am an anti-Tiger fan. So glad to see someone else win it, and do it with such style and grace.

[kafka01]

Vardon was the Woods of his day - the dominant player in the world, an intimidating presence on the field. He had his challengers but always saw them off: until 1913.

Having such an image is a good thing for the time being - you can "lay back" and wait for your opponents to choke.

But when this image got scratched (like at Turnberry and today) it will all of a sudden turn against you and you will have a much harder time fighting off your opponents. IMO for Tiger it would have been much better to not "overmanage" the course and go for more flags - or "go down in flames", instead of just waiting for his opponents to choke, esp. if they are plentiful. That might have been better for his image. And lets face it, a lot of the current events Tiger won, he did so, because his competition just completly screwed up in the final round giving him a white flag - this time it didnt worked out for him, and indeed it will be intresting to see what develops out of this for the future.

[mcfc_nick]

the even more surprising thing for me is that tiger was 4 clear on friday night and shot +2 for saturday and sunday!

[Dr. Manhattan]

the even more surprising thing for me is that tiger was 4 clear on friday night and shot +2 for saturday and sunday!

Yep, choked by his lofty standards. He failed to put the field away on Saturday and it bit him in the butt today.