Tiger Woods started the day one behind Rory Sabbatini with a field of contenders. By the end of the day, there stood Tiger at the top of the leaderboad turning the rest of the field into also-rans. Tiger Woods played a bogey-free final round and fired a 5-under par 65 to win the WGC Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, OH by eight strokes.
Rory Sabbatini started the day in the lead and in the final paring with Woods, just as he claimed to desire back at the Wachovia. Unfortunately for Rory, the results were the same as the Wachovia. Sabbatini started his day with a birdie at the first, and then played the next seventeen holes five over par to completely fall off the train tracks.
"Well, the whole idea is just — everyone knows how Rory is, and I just go out there and just let my clubs do the talking," said Woods.
As Sabbatini was leaving the ninth green, a fan called out to him, "Hey Rory, still think Tiger is beatable?", referring to the comments that Sabbatini had made previously. This didn’t sit well with Rory, as he pointed out the particular fan and had him escorted off the premises by the police.
"Well, you know, the situation is we’re out here to do our job. Let us do our job." said Sabbatini. "You know, even on 18 there, the guys being very insulting towards Kenny Perry’s first putt. Have a little bit of decorum and a little bit of class out there. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. But I guess a few too many beers were talking."
The major difference for Tiger Woods this week was his ability to hit is driver and recover from missed fairways. He finished the week number one in driving distance (335.0 yards), T21 in driving accuracy (54.5%) and number one in green in regulation (72.2%).
" The rough was up high enough where you hit the ball in the rough — one, you couldn’t get to the green, but if you did get a good enough lie to get to the green, there’s no chance of stopping it." said Woods. "And then with the pin locations, it just made for just a very difficult week, and you just had to keep your patience. It just felt like this event was playing more like a major than anything else. You just had to grind it out. Some years here you just feel like you’ve got to make birdie, three or four per nine, just to keep yourself in the tournament, but this week that wasn’t the case. You just had that feeling that it was set up more like a major championship where just having a lot of pars — pars were probably basically going to win the tournament."
Justin Rose made a nice move on Sunday by shooting 2-under and finishing even and tied with Sabbatini. He was four under through his first eight holes before finally realizing the move Tiger was making.
"I mean, to be honest, I hadn’t looked at a leaderboard all through the front nine. I kind of felt like I was getting myself into the golf tournament, and then I looked at the leaderboard and I think I saw Tiger at 7-under and thought, oh, well, we’re playing for second, and obviously that’s what it turned out to be. It was a bit of a scrap coming in to not sort of drop shots, but conditions got difficult at the end and I knew if I parred in I was going to be in decent shape."
Everything is looking in place for another fine showing by Woods during his attempt to defend his title at the PGA Championship beginning Thursday at Southern Hills.
"The whole idea was obviously to win this event but be playing well going into next week. I feel I made some nice strides this week, and I feel very good going into next week, getting a few days to prepare and getting adjusted, and off we go," said Woods.
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