The longtime Nike athlete Tiger Woods won the PGA Tour Championship on Sunday, ending a five-year winning drought and putting him two wins away from tying Sam Snead’s record of 82 PGA Tour wins.
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A 17-11 scoreline at Hazeltine two years ago, coupled with the fact that seven of the past nine major winners have come from America, points towards one logical conclusion. From the raw emotion in his post round interview, it looks like Tiger needs golf back in his life after a hard few years beset by injury and personal problems.
It completes a stunning comeback for the 14-time major victor, whose back injuries over recent years have been well documented. “It’s been tough. I’ve had a not-so-easy last two years”.
‘We’re all delighted for Tiger, this is insane scenes and I’m sure I’m not the most popular guy for making birdie on the last but, hey, he’s got enough money’.
“I think it’s special for him now to kind of join these younger players as a team-mate”.
“I just can’t believe I pulled this off”, he said in an interview on his official website.
“You could see the emotion in (Woods) fighting back tears”.
What has made the Woods phenomenon so fascinating during his 2018 comeback is that it only seemed to be partly about him.
“He does so much for the game of golf”, Bjorn said. It was great for the greater aspect of the game. “So for everyone in golf, it’s brilliant”.
The victory erased any last lingering doubts about Woods’ ability to compete at the highest level, something he had served notice of with top 10 finishes at the British Open and US PGA Championships.
The staid ol’ Tour Championship became a boisterous street party late Sunday afternoon, the fans storming down the middle of the 18th fairway like a bunch of crazed college kids laying siege to a football field after a last-second victory.
“I was pleased for Sergio”, Bjorn said.
“It wasn’t pretty at times but I got the job done when it mattered down the stretch”. Sergio is the type of guy that sometimes needs that little boost of feeling like things are going his way. “If I could somehow piece together a golf swing this year, I felt like I could do it. somehow I’ve been able to do that and here we are”. Off the golf course, he had to overcome the embarrassment of a DUI arrest in the early morning of Memorial Day in 2017 when he was found asleep at the wheel, later found to have a concoction of pain medication in his system. “No matter who is in the office, you may like [or] dislike [the] personality or the politics, but we must respect the office”.
“He’s in a good place”.
Six of the European team also played in Atlanta, but captain Bjorn is not anxious about fatigue.
“I’ve been lucky to have an opportunity to have the people around me to support me and work through this process with me and I’ve ground out a chance to win golf tournaments again”. The Ryder Cup, the biennial competition between athletes from the USA and Europe, begins September 28 in France and will be telecast by NBC and the Golf Channel.
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“I will stand behind them and I will support them and be that person that is with them all the way”, he said.
