10B = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
SPORTS
Par putt propels golfer to first PGA championship
The Associated Press
In his first time contending for a major, Toms played it conservatively on the decisive 18th hole and made it pay off with a 10-foot par putt to win the PGA Championship in dramatic style and deny Mickelson the major he so badly craves.
DULUTH, Ga. — David Toms showed Phil Mickelson how to get it done yesterday.
MONDAY,AUG.20,2001
With only a one-stroke lead and one hole to play, Toms decided to lay up short of the water on the 490-yard closing hole, the longest par 4 in PGA Championship history, and take his chances with his putter.
Toms snatched the lead with a hole-in-one from 243 yards on Saturday. He will be remembered for a 10-foot putt that gave him his first major and a final-round 69 that broke the 72-hole record for major championships.
After Mickelson's 30-foot birdie putt stopped 2 inches short of going in, Toms confidently rapped in his putt for par.
He finished at 265, breaking by two strokes the record first set at Royal St.
It didn't let him down.
George by Greg Norman in the 1993 British Open and later matched by Steve Elkington, who beat Colin Montgomerie in a playoff at the 1995 Riviera.
Mickelson still doesn't have a major, but no one can question his heart.
He played with courage and skill and made only one mistake on the back nine, but it cost him the major he covets. A three-putt from 50 feet on the 16th hole gave Toms a one-stroke lead, and the 34-year-old from Louisiana never gave it back.
"I just felt it was my best way to make 4," Toms said. "That's what I had to do, and it worked out just fine."
Taking his second shot on the final hole, from 210 yards away, Toms put his fairway metal back in the bag and played it safe with a wedge, laying up 90 yards short of the green.
"I certainly — certainly tried hard," he said.
Mickelson will have to carry that burdensome label of the "best player never to have won a major" for eight more months. His next chance is the
Along with winning $936,000 and the prized Wanamaker Trophy, the sixth victory of Toms' career earned him a spot on his first Ryder Cup team.
Mickelson is now 0-for-34 in the majors since he turned professional 10 years ago. It only seems longer because of his success — several PGA Tour victories as an amateur, 19 in all, second among active players to only Tiger Woods.
The only thing missing is a major.
Masters.
On the 15th hole, the scene of his dramatic ace the day before, Toms deposited this tee shot in a bunker and blasted out weakly to 20 feet. From the first cut of rough, Mickelson used a 60-degree sand wedge to chip his ball toward the hole, and it dropped in the heart.
It was the seventh time Mickelson had gone into the final round of a major within two strokes of the lead.
Mickelson took two steps, pumped his fist toward the ground and for once, didn't flash that gee-whiz smile that usually accompanies his great shots. He was all business, locked in
on winning his first major.
And just like that, it slipped away.
Mickelson caught a break when his tee shot went right for the third straight time, only to bounce out of the trees into the fairway — albeit 198 yards away. He hit the green, but knocked his 50-foot birdie putt about 6 feet by the hole.
Steve Lowery had a 68 and finished three strokes behind at 268 — and just two strokes short of making the Ryder Cup team.
He missed the putt on the left side to make bogey, and never got another chance.
"Stop! Stop!" he cried.
Toms' victory knocked Tom Lehman out of the top 10 in the standings. Curtis Strange will announce his two captain's picks this morning.
Then Phil finally flinched
Mark Calcavechia had a 65, the best score yesterday on an Atlanta Athletic Club course that finally was firm and fast. He tied for fourth with Shingo Katayama, who had more adventures with the water and closed with a 70.
Woods denies slump after finishing 30th at PGA
The Associated Press
DULUTH, Ga. — Tiger Woods claims he's not in a major championship free fall.
His results might show otherwise.
His results show once in April. Woods has failed to finish in the top 10 in the year's final three majors, finishing 12th at the U.S. Open, 25th in the British and tied for 30th in the PGA Championship yesterday.
He wore his traditional final-round red shirt, but Woods' flashy game wasn't present in the final round at Atlanta Athletic Club.
Instead of gunning for his third straight PGA title, Woods was just struggling to stay below par, with more groans and moans than roars from those following the golfing great.
Woods took yet another off week in stride.
round in every single tournament," he said.
"If you want to play this game for a long period of time, and I may be playing this game as long as Arnold (Palmer) has been playing—into my 60s and 70s competitively—I don't think you can beat yourself up over every single shot and over every single
"What you can do is learn from it," Woods added. "That's what I've done in the past and I will continue to learn more from my good and bad — more so when you play bad."
Woods has now finished out of the top 10 in five straight tournaments — a first for the game's all-time money leader.
"I've been blessed to have played as well as I have for two years, and on top of that I've had a lot of good breaks." Woods said. "When you get the breaks going your way, they seem to accumulate and you seem to take advantage of them."
Woods, who needed two long putts Friday over his final few holes just to make the cut, began the day at 1-under par and teed off three hours behind the final pairing of David Toms and Phil Mickelson.
Still, the crowds built to 10-deep along the first fairway, many hoping to see Woods make some kind of charge. A sign hung around one man's neck that said "Woods for President."
"I came out to see him shoot a 60 so everybody
After driving it in the rough on No. 1 and saving par, Woods bogeyed No. 2 and it was clear no low round was on the horizon.
will they're never safe no matter how far they are ahead," said Fred Alley of Greensboro, N.C. "If he shot a 60, it would scare the whole field."
No dice.
He finished the front nine the same place he started — at 1-under. Woods then hit his tee shot in the sand on No. 11 and threw his club after his approach shot fell 30 yards shy of the green and he boveged.
Normally long and accurate off the tee, Woods had only one of those components the last four days. His average driving distance was 316 yards, but Woods managed to hit just 32 of 56 fairways, a 57 percent clip.
However, Woods refused to say he was in any kind of slump.
"It's part of playing sports," Woods said. "You can't have everything going your way all the time, especially in this sport. It's pretty fickle."
Cornejo leads Tigers to defeat KC Royals
The Associated Press
DETROIT — Nate Cornejo earned his first major-league win and Jose Macias hit a two-run single as the Detroit Tigers beat the Kansas City Royals 4-3 yesterday.
Cornejo (1-0), a combined 16-3 at Triple-A Toledo and Double-A Eric before he was recalled by the Tigers earlier this month, was 0-1 with 15.30 ERA in two previous big-
league starts. But he stopped the Royals on five hits in 6 1 3 innings, allowing two runs with three walks and three strike-outs.
He retired 10 straight and 15 of 17 before Luis Alicea hit a solo homer with one out in the seventh.
Matt Anderson allowed a run in the ninth before getting his 15th save in 16 chances.
Chad Durbin (1-4) gave four runs — one earned — and seven hits for the second complete game of his career. Durbin was hurt by shortstop Neifi Perez's error in the fifth, which helped the Tigers break a 1-all tie.
After Bobby Higginson was safe on Perez's one-out error, Tony Clark reached when his weak ground up the first-base line stayed fair as Durbin let it roll. Robert Fick then hit a drive that went off center fielder Carlos Beltran's glove — it was ruled a single — to load the buses.
Randall Simon followed with a tiebreaking groundout and Macias singled through the middle to make it 4-1.
Joe Randa hit an RBI double to give the Royals a 1-10 lead in the first.
The Tigers recovered with Clark's runscoring groundout after Damion Easley doubled and Higginson singled in the home half.
Notes:
- Durbin hasn't won since his other complete game July 28 at Oakland, a span of four starts.
Tigers first-base coach Juan Samuel served his one-game suspension in the aftermath of the Aug. 10 brawl at Kansas City.
After a 3-33 road trip, the Royals open a 13-game homestand, their longest of the season, tonight against the White Sox.
The Tigers are just 5-13 in August after winning two of three from the Royals.