Dan Jenkins, the legendary golf writer, was reminded of Jack Fleck, an unknown Navy veteran who won his first PGA Tour event by beating Ben Hogan in an 18-hole playoff at the U.S. Open in 1955.
In other words, it’s been a while since golf has seen a finish as surprising as Sunday’s.
During the long final round of the PGA Championship, more recent unknowns came to mind — Bob May and Rocco Mediate, who came out of nowhere to challenge Tiger Woods at major championships.
The difference between them and Yong-Eun Yang, of course, is they lost.
This was the inevitability of Tiger. Until Sunday, all challengers, charming or familiar, were mere obstacles to overcome, enablers of Tiger’s transcendence.
It is unbelievable that his inevitability lasted this long. Fourteen times Tiger led a major after three rounds, and 14 times he won. Now, at 33, a little more than a year past reconstructive knee surgery, it is 14 out of 15.
Tiger did not acknowledge playing the prevent defense Sunday, even though that’s the way it looked. Football commentators love to say that the only thing the prevent prevents is winning.
The case that Tiger played the prevent lies not only in his final-round 75, but also in the careful, conservative method that produced the score, typified by an uncharacteristic layup on a 240-yard approach at No. 7.
Tiger blamed a wayward putter for his score, and he certainly had a case. If he’d made half the putts that looked into the cup as they rolled past, it never would have come down to No. 18.
And even if he was playing the prevent, he probably couldn’t admit it. It would amount to an admission that after a decade of domination, he has come to agree with the consensus that there is no one out there with the mettle to stand up to him in the crucible of the final round of a major championship.
Let’s be honest: That’s been true. The biggest difference between Tiger and Jack Nicklaus, the man he’s chasing for the top spot on history’s leaderboard, is the quality of their competition. Five Nicklaus contemporaries — Gary Player, Tom Watson, Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino and Raymond Floyd — won more than three majors, most of them a lot more. There are six if you count Seve Ballesteros, who came in at the tail end.
None of Woods’ contemporaries has. We have hyped one after another of them in hopes they would grow into the role. The most recent candidate, Ireland’s Padraig Harrington, represented a generation of Tiger’s challengers by imploding with a “Tin Cup” moment on No. 8, hitting into the water twice and knocking himself out of the tournament.
Isn’t this what always happens to Tiger’s foes, if not quite so colorfully? All Tiger has to do is look at a rival to make him wilt. For all the commentary that Harrington isn’t intimidated by Woods, he fell from one shot back to four playing with him in the second round, then climbed back in not playing with him in the third. Tiger’s playing partner in the third, Vijay Singh, shot his way out of the tournament with a 75.
And he wasn’t alone. Anytime anyone other than Yang threatened to get into the hunt Sunday, he retreated right back down the leaderboard as if shocked by his own temerity. Among them were Lucas Glover, the U.S. Open champion, and the venerable Ernie Els, another would-be Tiger rival who never quite got there.
So why wouldn’t Tiger believe that his unknown playing partner would do the same? Even trailing Yang by one stroke walking up the 18th fairway, Tiger seemed to have him right where he wanted him.
Over the years, Tiger’s will has grown even more formidable than his golf game. Was there any doubt who would choke and who would make the big shot when it was all on the line?
At 37, Yang is not exactly the young phenom the golf world has been waiting for. But he had one more tour win than Fleck before his moment of immortality. After flubbing a short putt for the lead on No. 8, Yang gathered himself and didn’t make another nervous shot until No. 17, when Tiger’s own flub nullified it. On 18, Yang was nails.
“It’s good that I didn’t look too nervous,” he said through an interpreter afterward. “I tried to master the art of controlling my emotions, and throughout the small wins that I had in my career, I tried to control it. So I think it turned out quite well today.”
On a day Woods was supposed to continue his march into history, Yang made some instead, opening golf’s door wider to Asia in the process.
Maybe Tiger played the prevent. Maybe, given the history, he had reason to. Maybe he just putted poorly on a windy day. Either way, he’s still the best out there by plenty. But he’s no longer inevitable.
Dave Krieger: 303-954-5297 or dkrieger@denverpost.com
