A decision to punch out KO's bid of Holmes
BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. - In a seven-hour span yesterday, J.B. Holmes remained a serious contender for the 90th PGA Championship, going from leader by one at the start of his third round to just one behind at the start of his fourth.
It took mere minutes, however, for Holmes to fall from view with a stunning collapse that cost him a chance to win a major championship and may jeopardize his Ryder Cup chances.
"It wasn't my day. Everything that could possibly go wrong, went wrong," said Holmes, whose triple bogey, bogey, bogey start in his closing round sent him spiraling to an 81 as he plummeted down the leaderboard.
Having never had a chance to play his third round because of Saturday's ferocious storms, Holmes resumed his duties bright and early and seemingly hadn't lost any of the steam from Friday's 68 that had pushed him into a one-stroke lead. With an eagle at the par-5 second and a birdie at the par-5 12th, Holmes was holding firm, tied for the lead, but then he bogeyed the par-4 18th to fall one behind Ben Curtis.
No worries - or so it seemed, for Holmes had settled on a rip-it-grip-it mentality that had served him well. Until . . . the drive at No. 1 in his final round went well left and wound up beneath a tree.
Inexplicably, Holmes climbed in with a 3 wood, presumably to use it to measure off a two-club distance for having an unplayable lie. But no, he chose to punch out with the fairway wood. Bad move, because he popped it up, and when it hit a branch he now had an unplayable lie. Holmes made triple bogey, which was compounded by the wild drive he hit at the second that led to another bogey, then the missed green at the par-3 third that led to another bogey.
In roughly 30 minutes and with 17 strokes, Holmes had gone from one back to seven behind. He wound up at 10-over 290, tied for 29th, and when it was over, he was asked about where that opening drive came to rest.
"It was not that much worse than Henrik [Stenson's], but I couldn't hit it," said Holmes. "I couldn't do nothing."
Did he think of taking a penalty drop right away?
Holmes said he did, but "it wouldn't have gotten me out of the trees. So, I just decided to go ahead and take a whack at it, but it just didn't come out."
Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger, who surely couldn't have been pleased to see another potential captain's pick, Rocco Mediate, shoot 85 and finish second-to-last in the field, will name his four captain's picks Sept. 2, the day after the
Ryder berth for Curtis
A second major would have ranked as his primary goal, but Curtis can't complain about the consolation prize - his first berth on a US Ryder Cup team. Though the one-stroke lead through 54 holes was lost in a blizzard of birdie putts by Padraig Harrington, Curtis held together and with a closing 71 finished at 1-under 279, tied for second with Sergio Garcia, and that enabled him to vault from 20th in the standings into one of the eight automatic qualifying berths at No. 7 . . . Boo Weekley gained the eighth spot and also will make his Ryder Cup debut. It wasn't easy, however, because when he played 14 holes in 7-over to finish off his third round in the morning, Weekley fell from three strokes off the lead to well behind. Though he closed with a 66 -288 to finish tied for 20th, he did let a major chance slip away . . . The man knocked out was Steve Stricker, whose final-round 69 wasn't enough to offset the dismal 77 in the third round. In the end, Stricker finished at 12-over 292, tied for 39th, and will, like Holmes, be hoping for a captain's pick
Teed off by the ninth
Whatever money spent by Oakland Hills CC and the PGA of America to build a new tee box that stretched the par-3 ninth to 257 yards - well, it wasn't worth it. Unless, that is, club officials were in search of a way to make their beloved South Course a par 73 layout. With so much advance billing about the new tee, it was a head-scratcher that it wasn't used at least once; instead, officials played the hole at about 220 all four rounds. Not using it was seen as a concession that it was a foolhardy idea from the start, but if club officials want to justify the expense of putting in the new tee, they may want to send their members back to 257, call it a par 4, and thus would it be a par 73. (The eighth hole is a par 5 for members and so is the 18th.) . . . En route to a closing 73 -289 that left him tied for 24th, Sweden's Fredrik Jacobson used a 4 iron to ace the 193-yard, par-3 13th. It was the 20th hole-in-one this PGA Tour season and the 37th in PGA Championship history since 1970 . . . There were two other eagles - by Chez Reavie and Garcia, both at the second. For four days, the second hole yielded 10 of the championship's 18 eagles; seven were made at the 12th, and Jacobson's at the 13th . . . The scoring averages for Rounds 3 (72.918) and 4 (73.438) helped soften the numbers after the first two days had players screaming for relief. They got it, from PGA of America officials who watered and cut rough and from Mother Nature, who dropped about an inch of rain on Oakland Hills Saturday. Overall, the field average was 74.313 . . . The toughest hole? Easily the 498-yard 8th, which played to a field average of 4.661. Only 18.8 percent of the players hit the green in regulation.
Mickelson unfulfilled
After a streak of three years with at least one major championship, Phil Mickelson officially has concluded a second straight season without one. Capping off a championship in which he just never got anything going, the lefthander shot 70 -284 and settled for a share of seventh. Before he turned his attention to the sudden woes he's having with a short game that is under the supervision of Dave Pelz, Mickelson acted like a PGA of America spokesman. "It was an interesting week for everybody. I thought that it came down to an exciting finish," he said. OK, fine, but what about his four days of decent, but not great, play? "I would have liked to obviously play better. I let a lot of shots slide around the greens," said the lefthander, who then diverted into more positive words about Michigan, Detroit, and the fans.
Jim McCabe can be reached at jmccabe@globe.com. 