Sunday proves it again: Nothing stirs drama like a par-5 finish
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| The writing was on the check a bit too early Sunday at Torrey Pines. (GeoffShackelford.com) |
ORLANDO, Fla. -- If it were mandatory, it would be monotonous, of course.
But heaven help us, is there anything better in the professional game than a par-5 finishing hole with all the marbles on the line -- guys playing for life-changing purses amid potentially career-defining circumstances -- and with marbles rattling around their confused noggins?
That's a hugely rhetorical question, people, because as we learned Sunday, the answer is an absolute, indisputable no.
Two players separated by 12 time zones -- truly half a world apart -- burped and barfed, respectively, on three-shot closing holes at key events in Abu Dhabi and La Jolla, filming a stereophonic clinic in how not to play a strategically challenging three-shot closing hole with a commanding lead.
With a two-shot margin and the biggest title of his life moments away,
More interesting by design, par-5 holes at the last hole can offer recovery, redemption and retching -- sometimes in fast succession.
Rock's penalty-shot slap was mere prelude to
Stanley went from low man to snowman all because he bungled the par-5 closing hole, one of the more teeth-chattering risk-reward finales in professional golf.
"I'm still in shock right now," Stanley said after the playoff ended.
It was wrenching for television viewers too. Yet chalk outlines, corpses and body bags aside, our only wish is that there were more of these moments. It's where drama and trauma frequently coalesce, because par-5 holes often require a player to think tactically, then execute practically in a manner that completely differs from the first three days of play.
The horror.
The largely unheralded Rock held on to beat a field that included his fellow 54-hole co-leader and playing partner, Tiger Woods. Interestingly, the former world No. 1 had himself lost a 54-hole lead in the United Arab Emirates once before. Back in 2001 in Dubai, Woods rinsed his approach on the par-5 18th, sealing a surprising loss to Thomas Bjorn.
One of the most compelling endings of 2011 came at the Deutsche Bank Championship outside Boston, where Chez Reavie did everything exactly right and was clinging to a one-shot lead as he played the par-5 18th. Ahead of him, Webb Simpson had birdied the hole, but Reavie only needed a par to win and had a wedge in hand for his third shot after prudently laying up short of the hazard fronting the green.
He badly steer-jobbed the wedge shot, failed to get up and down, and lost to Simpson in a playoff. A classic two-shot swing, exacerbated by the risk-reward design of the three-shot hole.
But has any hole been more tactical and theatrical than the 18th at Torrey Pines over the years? Stanley and Snedeker executed an incomprehensible four-shot swing, wrecking what seemed sure to be a victory procession for the former.
True story: When the 2008 U.S. Open was played at Torrey, Rees Jones, who had handled the course redesign a few years earlier, wanted the 18th to play as a long par-4. Mike Davis, now the executive director of the U.S. Golf Association, insisted it play as a par-5, envisioning somebody making a walk-off eagle to win the national title.
He didn't quite get his wish, but the images of Woods making a birdie on the last hole to force a Monday playoff remain seared into the global golf consciousness, don't they?
Care to guess how many U.S. Opens have been claimed over the past 85 years wherein the victor recorded a winning birdie at the last hole to win by a stroke? Zero. Not enough par-5s.
After Stanley's ball spun violently backward into the water Sunday night, some questioned the design of the closing hole at Torrey, and not without some merit. The collar of the green slopes steeply toward the pond, which means any ball that doesn't land well clear of the hazard might roll backward into a watery grave. But eventual winner Brandt Snedeker had no such issues with his wedge or approach shots, deftly staking attempts inside five feet in regulation and the playoff for easy, compelling birdies.
It's been this way at Torrey since, well, Week 1.
Player after player has flirted with Devlin's Billabong, the moniker of the pond named for the former tour player who made a round-wrecking 10 on the hole in 1975, the very year they added the pond to the design.
Some folks might call this foreshadowing.
Aussie Bruce Devlin, playing well ahead of the leaders, was putting together a terrific day and thought an eagle on the last might be enough to hold off the guys behind him. His 4-wood approach hit the same bank that sealed Stanley's fate Sunday and rolled back into the water. After repeatedly slashing the ball from the pond, Devlin eventually one-putted for a 10. In Australia, a billabong is slang for pond, and the hazard was good-naturedly named in his honor a year later.
Last year at Torrey, Bubba Watson boldly hammered his approach shot at the last hole into a greenside bunker, got up and down for birdie, then sweated out an incredible finish in which Phil Mickelson, needing an eagle to tie, had his caddie tend the pin as he attempted a wedge shot from the 18th fairway. Indelible.
In 2005, Charles Howell was chasing Woods and played a perfectly struck wedge from 95 yards to the 18th that squarely hit the bottom of the flagstick for a near-winning slam dunk, then caromed cruelly, shockingly, into Devlin's Billabong. It would have been an epic ending. Instead? Glub, glub.
Like Woods at the '08 Open, some have hit the hero shots. In recording his first PGA Tour win in nearly a decade, John Daly hammered his approach into the bunker behind the 18th at Torrey in 2004, then splashed his sand shot from 100 feet to within inches of the cup, securing an easy birdie to win a three-man playoff over San Diego's Chris Riley and current world No. 1 Luke Donald.
Nothing against the mountain of two-shot closing holes out there, but reachable par-5s with the potential for disaster make the huge swings and indelible moments possible. As much of golf's fan base is slowly easing its way back into the 2012 season, it's worth noting that four of the first six events on the PGA Tour calendar have par-5 finishing holes on the Sunday venues: Kapalua, Torrey, Palm Springs and Pebble Beach. In some regards, it makes for the most potentially jarring final-hole stretch of the year.
Sunday became theater of the absurd as Stanley unspooled on the 18th. The faux jumbo paycheck had already been made out in his name, but was fast discarded under the grandstands following his bungle (GeoffShackelford.com). Snedeker, who finished one group ahead of Stanley, had already adjourned to the media center for the obligatory runner-up interview and was holding court with the scribes, with one eye on the TV.
Here's the transcribed exchange Snedeker had with writers and TV folks at the precise instant Stanley bathed his approach en route to making an 8 on the last hole:
Snedeker: "I knew I needed to shoot something low, and kind of got off to a little bit of a slow start, and made some birdies around the turn to get things kicking into gear. But I just kind of was too far back. Kyle had too big a lead. Uh-oh."
Media: "You're not done yet."
Snedeker: "That's [shots] three and four; he's hitting five. How many-a-shot-lead does he have?""
Media: "He's got three right now."
Snedeker: "We better do this [interview] quickly then. I gotta get to the putting green in case something happens."
Something did, which is often the case on par-5 closing holes where tension, triumph and tragedy all too frequently intersect. An hour later, Snedeker was back in the same media center chair, reveling in the most unlikely victory on tour in months, if not years.
So, you can keep your odd par-3 closing holes (Greenbrier, East Lake), and likewise the numbing litany of mediocre par-4s, which are so common they aren't worth noting.
Give me those intestine-twisting par-5s every time, where eagles fly and Titleists drown.
