Did Tom Watson kick your puppy or something? It’s one of those stories that come around every so often to make you feel good and you’re dropping the hammer on Watson.
I hope he wins. His swing still looks good and he doesn’t look like he’s laboring. He just needs to be guttier with his putts and I think he’s got it.
Cink is widely regarded as one of the biggest assholes on tour.
BTW, ABC’s commentators suck big time. Tirico is a good host, but his blandness is accompanied by mountains of more bland. They really need a Feherty or McCord or Johnny Miller to spice things up.
Judy Rankin and Andy North are good, but Azinger and Weiskopf are just atrocious. The guy who does the clubhouse interviews is just as bad.
What is your problem? 
I want Watson to win, too. But that par putt at 18 was exactly what Watson’s Achille’s Heel has been for decades. It’s why he stopped winning championships. it’s sad that it still bothers him.
He spent all day leaving putts short; clearly he was afraid of leaving comebackers, and it cost him. He left at least five putts short dead in, which if he had hit harder, would have given him the tournament running away.
Now, he’s one behind Cink, having left his approach to 5 short. I watched this happen to Gene “the machine” Littler in 1977 in person at Pebble Beach. While he wasn’t 59, he was older, and he got tired at the end and started leaving things short. Hopefully, he overcomes it somehow.
ETA: And now he’s hitting things right… 
Tom had a nice save out of the spinach on that par 3.
Fuck, now he’s in the hay off the tee. This is going to suck if he ends up losing to that redneck asshole, Cink.
He’s done. <sigh>
I think it’s all over. So close and yet so far.
He looked like he was killing snakes in the weeds. This is really too bad. He missed the prize by one bad iron shot. What a shit sandwich to end this weekend with.
Yup sad. Still great to see.Get em next year Tom!
Cink may well be the biggest name in golf that I care the least about. Seems to win a lot of money, but not many tourneys. Nothing particularly interesting about any aspect of him or his game. Never seems quite right hearing him mentioned in the top 25, for Ryder Cup, etc.
Well, him and Lefty, no? 
I don’t think that people would call Mickleson an asshole. Arrogant and pouty, yes, but that’s a different thing from being an asshole. Cink’s reputation is quite a bit different.
By whom? And is it true? I ask because the commentators were saying what a nice guy he is, and the article in today’s Atlanta Journal Constitution was basically “nice guys can win sometimes”. Now, I know that these media are not likely to announce “complete jerk wins The Open”, but they are hardly likely to choose their main angle to be “he’s a nice guy” if that is widely regarded to be untrue - there are plenty of other ways they could have told the story.
I’m still bummed. The golfing gods fell asleep at the wrong moment.
That was so disappointing, I so wanted Tom to win. Probably my earliest golf memory is of Tom Watson chipping in on the 17th at Pebble Beach to beat Jack and I always hated taht his game just disappeared.
The guy is still a legend though. Cink will be a forgotten footnote with so many other Major winners over time, except maybe as the guy who beat Tom Watson.
I was suprised at Westwood’s meltdown, three bogeys on the last four holes.
DSY - weren’t you the guy who churned the records and came up with the US Open as the tourney most likely to be won by a one-time-wonder? I started thinking about that when adding Cink to such recent luminaries as Todd Hamilton and Ben Curtis. But the rest of the list of winners holds up pretty well.
Yeah. On 18, it looked like he figured he had to make that long birdie putt, but it turns out that a two-putt would have gotten him into the playoff.
As I recall, the British Open manages to produce its fair share of first-time major winners. What sets the two apart, IIRC, is that the winners of the British Open have a greater tendency to go on and win another. cf: Padraig Harrington three years ago.
Paul Lawrie goes in that list of one-time wonders. So does Mark Calcavechia. Note who also was making a good showing for a bit this year…
Does anyone know who generally wins a playoff? I can think of three playoffs: Paul Lawrie, John Daly, and this year. And to mje it always seems to be the guy who has the most time to relax wins. Does anybody else think possibly a four hole playoff is unfair to the person who just got done playing?
There have been 8 playoffs under the current format of 4 hole aggregate score. The first was in 1989, won by Mark Calcavecchia. Here are the results, and whether the winner finished first or last (or some other position, since more than 2 can be in the playoff):
1989 - Mark Calcavecchia over Wayne Grady and Greg Norman. Calc finished in the middle of the three; Norman finished earliest, Grady was in the final group.
1995 - John Daly over Constantino Rocca. I believe Daly finished one group ahead of Rocca.
1998 - Mark O’Meara over Brian Watts. I can’t recall if they were in the final pairing together (I think they were), or if O’Meara was a group ahead (I can’t recall, nor does the BO site say whether O’Meara, Parnevik or Furyk was paired with Watts).
1999 - Paul Lawrie over Justin Leonard and Jean Van de Velde. Lawrie finished first; Leonard finished a group ahead of Van de Velde, who was paired with Craig Parry the final day.
2002 - Ernie Els over Thomas Levet, Stuart Appleby and Steve Elkington (remember him?). Els played in the final group of the day, finishing even par for the day, as did his playing partner, Soren Hansen, the only two among the top 13 who did NOT break par that day. Appleby, Level, and Elkington finished more than a couple groups ahead; Appleby was first to finish, but Levet was the one who remained tied with Els after the four holes were done, requring a sudden-death repeat of the 18th hole.
2004 - Todd Hamilton over Ernie Els. Both played in the final group.
2007 - Padraig Harrington over Sergio Garcia. Harrington was two (?) groups ahead of Garcia (remember Garcia watching Harrington put it in the burn on 18 while he himself hacked around on 17?).
2009 - Stuart Cink over Tom Watson. Cink was three groups ahead of Watson.
So the results are kind of all over the place. Nevertheless, I maintain that anytime there is a same-day playoff (4 hole or sudden death), the person who has played more poorly is more likely to lose. Since a person finishing earlier will have had to shoot better to be in the playoff, ipso facto they are more likely to win the playoff.
Perhaps someone could look at the stats on sudden-death playoffs for the PGA and US Open and see if that holds true?
I think you mean PGA and Masters; the US Open has an 18-hole playoff.
Yes. :o