APPARENTLY FORM DOES matter on the PGA Tour. After all, there has been no one more consistent this year -- not even you, Matt Kuchar -- than Nick Watney. Consider that in the last two years, spanning 31 tournaments he's shot in the 80's (four times) more often than he's been cut (just twice). The last time he was cut, by the way, was at The Memorial last June.
Since then, he's finished in the top-10 nine times and the top-20 13 times. Admittedly the majority of those have been this year, as he's opened the year with the following results: T6, T5, T6, T9, win. It's the third win of his career and first since the Buick Invitational more than two years ago. I already wrote on Friday that I thought he was a strong play for Augusta and nothing I saw over the weekend made me move off that point. In fact, I'm glad I got action on that when I did. Given the way he fell apart in the final round at the PGA Championship last year (one of those rounds in the 80s) and the way he finished his round yesterday (finding the water on the 18th hole, making a double bogey to fall out of the lead and the final group) you have to give him credit for having the resolve for getting things done.
Where it was won: Given how solid he played all day, it's hard to really single one area out. That said, a pair of long par putts -- 17-feet at the 13th and 24-feet from the fringe at the 15th -- probably loom as his two largest strokes of the tournament. He opened with birdies on the first two holes and -- despite a bogey at the fourth -- carried the momentum from there. Unlike his main adversary in Dustin Johnson (see below) Watney really had the flat stick working. He made 16 of 19 putts inside 15 feet, including all seven of his birdies and needed just 22 putts overall.
Where it was lost: It would be too easy to point Johnson's lone bogey of the round and only second of the weekend as the reason he didn't win the tournament, but it's not quite that simple. With his prodigious length off the tee, Johnson should beat up par fives, but was just one-under in his final round notching a birdie on his opening hole and missing birdie putts of 20-feet, 15-feet and just under seven-feet on the other three. He missed four other birdie bids from reasonable range -- 17-feet at 2 and 4, seven-feet at the seventh and just under 10-feet at the 18th, which can be excused since he knew he had no chance of winning. But even with all that in mind, this may be a good breakout for him in 2011, a topic will explore in more depth in the Friday Fourball.
Shots of the week
Stat of the week: For the week Watney played the par-fives at 11-under. On the weekend he was nine-under having birdied every par five on both days with the exception of recording an eagle at the first on Saturday.
How I did
WGC-Cadillac Championship
Nick Watney, win
Louis Oosthuizen, T18
Paul Casey, T18
Charl Schwartzel, T24
Bill Haas, T31
Jim Furyk, T49
Puerto Rico Open
Angel Cabrera, T7
John Merrick, T11
Brendon de Jonge, T14
Paul Stankowski, T55
Kris Blanks, Cut
Early look at next week:
-Innisbrook is one of the tougher tracks on the PGA Tour
-Who I like: KJ Choi, Geoff Ogilvy, Charles Howell III
No comments:
Post a Comment