Golf Update: WGC-Bridgestone Invitational trophy belongs to Hunter Mahan
Hunter Mahan stole the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational trophy from Tiger Woods in Akron, Ohio. He blistered a score of 64 at the Firestone Country Club on Sunday. This was his third PGA championship victory and the 2nd in the season.
Not to forget this is the same tournament where the world number 1, Tiger Woods despite producing the worst scores of his career maintained his title.
This was the first victory of Hunter Mahan in a World Golf Championship’s event. Moreover, this victory has guaranteed his appearance in the American Ryder Cup team at Celtic Manor in October. However, there is another presumption that Tiger Woods might not be seen at the battle of Celtic Manor between the teams of USA and Europe. This presumption arises from two places, one he will be automatically disqualified from the US Ryder cup if he loses one more event, two he himself is not ready to take part in it, as he believes it will be unfair to play with a game like his.
Supporting the two references, Tiger Woods carded only three birdies with six bogeys and two double bogeys to wrap up the final round with a score of 18 over par. The strange part of the story was that, the venue on which this score was posted was none other than Firestone Country Club, in which "Tiger" had won seven times earlier. Tiger Woods previous worst score was at the Greater Milwaukee Open in 1996, where he finished at the 60th place.
At one place, Tiger Woods’ was stumbling and on the other hand, Hunter Mahan was posting the final round of 6-under-par 64 to win the WGC-Bridgestone by two strokes over Ryan Palmer. Hunter Mahan’s intentions to steal the trophy showed up at the front nine, when his score card started showing consecutive birdies from the 3rd hole onwards to the 8th. On reaching the back nine, Hunter Mahan faced two threats, one from Sean O’Hair and the other from Ryan Palmer. However, these threats got eliminated down the lane, when Sean O’Hair bogeyed the 8th hole of par 4 and Ryan Palmer missed the birdie putts at the 16th and the 17th hole. The 28-year-old Mahan delivered two clutch putts on the last four holes to post a 12-under total of 268 to claim the victory.
Moving forward, the much speculated Phil Mickelson who was being considered for the number title on the official world golf ranking, failed to end Tiger Woods era of 5 years. Phil Mickelson’s bad luck started when he got stuck in the green side bunker and ended with a bogey. This did not ended here; in fact, this was merely the starting as after that, Phil scored three more on the 6th, 12th and the 13th hole. Phil Mickelson finished with an eight over 78 in a tie for the 46th position.
Coming to the rest of the leader board; Retief Goosen the winner of the second round finished with 65 to share the third position with Bo van Pelt who scored 67.Only three shots behind, was Sean O'Hair with 8 under, while Jim Furyk and Jeff Overton took the 6th top position with a score of seven under 69.
Other names with distinctions were Peter Hanson with 6 under, Louis Oosthuizen, Rory McIlroy and Padraig Harrington with 5 under. Ernie Els, Paul Casey, Sergio Garcia and Graeme McDowell finished with 1under.However,one more name needs to mentioned here and that is of Stuart Appleby, whose lucky charm did not work here and he ended with 7 -over.
On the whole, the final round of the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational has ended and Hunter Mahan has taken the trophy and the prize money of $1400, 000 home. According to the experts, the results of the tournament were a total surprise, although nothing exceptional was being expected from Tiger Woods, the ex- defending champion but the way fluctuations were seen at the top of leader board, one could not predict the ultimate winner till the end.
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