Sunday, April 10, 2011

Schwartzel Closes with Four Straight Birdies to Claim Masters

It was a streaky final day at the Masters golf tournament. Coming down to the end, several contenders were centered around a score of 10-under-par. The winner was an unknown (to me at least), South Africa's Charl Schwartzel. According to this article, "Schwartzel emerged from the madness by becoming the first Masters champion to close with four straight birdies," leaving him on top at minus-14.

Australians Jason Day (holes 17 and 18) and Adam Scott (14 and 16) each recorded two late birdies to finish tied for second at minus-12. Tiger Woods was hot early, lowering his score from minus-5 to minus-10 within the first eight holes today, but minus-10 was where Woods was at the finish line, tied with Geoff Ogilvy and Luke Donald.

And then there was Rory McIlroy, who entered the final round with a four-stroke lead, but then developed a decidedly cold hand. Quoting again from the aforementioned article:

Still leading by one shot as he headed to the back nine, McIlroy hit a tee shot next to the cabins left of the 10th fairway and twice hit a tree to make triple bogey. He three-putted from 7 feet for bogey on the 11th, four-putted from about 12 feet on the next hole and buried his head into his forearm as the shock began to settle in.

McIlroy shot 80, the highest final round by the 54-hole leader since Ken Venturi in 1956.

No comments: