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2010 US Open Champ Graeme McDowell
He was gift wrapped it by the various Sunday CHOKES or collapses by 3 of the games biggest names and a 25 year old who lost control of his round very early own. I will say that I have watched McDowell closely for the last 8 years and I do think he is a great player and it was nice to see him win.
McDowell did play solid for the first 8 holes of Sundays Final round of the 110th playing of the US Open but he tried his best to LOSE the tournament to a virtual no name in Gregory Havret. After Dustin Johnson had an out of body experience during the first 4 holes and quickly choked down his 3 shot lead, McDowell only had to worry about Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Ernie Els. That’s 21 Major Championships chasing you down. At one point it looked like Tiger, Phil and Ernie could easily win the title but each player experienced uncharacteristic chokes at pivotal points or during the the entire round.
Tiger’s round got of a poor start and it looked like a he would put up another charge after a 30 foot birdie putt on the 7th dropped. But as quickly things looked good, they turned bad and he FALTERED on holes 8 & 10 making bogeys and was unable to recover down the stretch to pull closer.
The same can be said for Phil who never really seemed to be comfortable on the greens or with his distance control after a brilliant 66 on Friday.
Ernie Els on the other hand did a great job to keep himself in the tournament all the way until the 15th hole where he had a mere 4 foot putt to pull within one of the lead. He hit the putt to hard and missed it BADLY. Still though he had chance but needed to finish par birdie on the closing two holes. Instead he finished bogey par.
Dustin Johnson looked like the man in charge of the tournament after he matched Tiger’s Saturday 66 to hold a 3 shot lead. That quickly vanished with two major brain lapses on the 2nd hole. What really cost him though was a poor sand wedge shot that just missed the bunkered but was barried in the tall fescue grass. He played a decent shot left handed to get out the of the lie but then played his next shot far too quickly and only advanced the ball 2 feet. He then chipped close and missed a 3 footer for double. On the very next hole he played aggressive which I liked but just hit a poor tee shot and ended up making double. Now he was down by 2 shots and beginning to really feel the pressure. He couldn’t recover and shot the highest final round by a leader in almost 100 years.
McDowell himself hit the ball rather poor over the final 10 holes but was able to simply win the tournament because Greg Havret (who played the best round of the bunch by a long shot) failed to make 2 crucial putts inside 10 feet on the last 2 holes. Therefore McDowell was actually HANDED the tournament and played barely good enough golf to hold the trophy to win. Nothing wrong with doing what is needed but if it wasn’t for some uncharacteristically poor play by the worlds best golfers, he wouldn’t have won.
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