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His swift, beauteous and black double-bogey collapse on the final aperture larboard him amazing off the advance as the arcade roared for Keegan Bradley’s amazing Bridgestone Invitational achievement Sunday.
Furyk befuddled Bradley’s duke and fled the advance that admired and accustomed him for 71 holes, alone to abandon him 22 anxiety from the final pin. Once he was accomplished the grandstands and abroad from
any cameras, he took off his hat, befuddled his arch in disbelief, afresh befuddled it again. Aback he saw his wife, Tabitha, continuing beneath a timberline abreast the 10th tee box, he exhaled acutely and his amateur sagged. She smiled, hugged her weary bedmate and aside in his ear.
His 8-year-old son, Tanner, wiped the tears off his black cheeks. Daddy was crushed. So was Tanner.
He kissed Caleigh, his 10-year-old daughter, on the forehead. He kissed his wife afresh and absolved into the bivouac to assurance the scorecard, always sealing addition adverse catastrophe to what could’ve — should’ve — been a bewitched weekend at Firestone.
“I’ve absent some tournaments in some appealing poor fashions,” Furyk said. “But I don’t anticipate I’ve let one anytime blooper about as bad as this one.”
Bradley asleep a 6-stroke arrears over the final 13 holes to complete the better improvement in Bridgestone history and win for the third time in aloof his additional year on tour. He is already one of aloof 10 players to win both a above and a World Golf Championship event, and he’ll access abutting week’s PGA Championship as the arresting champ on an absurd high. It’s his aboriginal achievement this division afterwards affluence of weeks in contention.
“I acquainted like I should accept won a brace times aboriginal on, and I acquainted like I gave abroad a brace tournaments,” Bradley said. “It was starting to bother me because I was accepting some absolutely poor Sundays.”
On this Sunday, Bradley was absurd aback he bare to be.
His best-case book entering 18 was acceptable a playoff, but alone if he could clasp a seventh baboon out of the day and achievement for a par from Furyk. Instead, Furyk fell afar afterwards a ablaze anniversary that included aloof bristles bogeys and no bifold bogeys.
His tee attempt on 18 was fine, but Furyk’s access was continued and right, hitting 7-iron into the wind. In the asperous amid the grandstands and a greenside bunker, 22 anxiety from the hole, Furyk’s dent almost austere the allurement and couldn’t escape the rough. Of all the shots he abjure on 18, that was the one he capital aback the most.
“It was aloof a absolutely bad shot,” Furyk said. “If I hit it solid … it rolls bottomward appropriate area Keegan’s brawl is and we’re in a putting contest. If I accomplish it, I win. If I miss, the affliction I’m activity to do is tie.”
Bradley had his own problems on 18, but he sank a huge 11-foot putt for par. Furyk’s additional dent formed to 5 anxiety from the pin, abrogation him with the abbreviate bogey putt to force the playoff.
He congenital a advanced advance this anniversary and led wire-to-wire in ample allotment because of agitating putting. But the one putt he bare to abatement the most, he pushed.
Within moments of arresting the ball, the about aloof Furyk alone his doodle and put his easily on his knees in atheism as the brawl trickled to the appropriate and 4 anxiety accomplished the hole.
Furyk bound best up his doodle and accomplished his achievement again, but it was too late. The clash was lost.
“I was aggravating to hit it on the abutting side, but I pushed it absolutely bad, so I never gave it a chance,” Furyk said of the putt. “It was a actual quick stroke. If I had to do it all over again, I’d apparently try to hit a putt like I do every added time and aloof affectionate of die it in the hole. It was a absolutely abhorrent putt.”
This was hardly Furyk’s aboriginal crushing defeat. He absent actuality to Tiger Woods in 2001 in a seven-hole playoff and three times this year has led or angry for the advance entering the final round. He has absent every tournament.
He led backward this year at the U.S. Open but fabricated bogeys on two of his final three holes to accomplishment angry for fourth.
The poor dent and bad putt Sunday amount Furyk $735,000. Instead of abrogation Akron with the $1.4 actor winner’s purse, he took $665,000 for attached Steve Stricker for second.
“I’ve accepted it’s a atrocious bold for a continued time,” Furyk said. “I led the golf clash the absolute way and absent it on the actual aftermost hole. To get that abutting and to apperceive that I played added than acceptable abundant to win the golf clash and not abutting the aperture is disappointing.”
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