Vijay Singh shoots 3 straight bogeys, Steve Lowery posts fist
win since 2000
Pebble Beach
It wasn’t necessarily the Lone Cypress, which is located just a couple of 9-iron shots down 17-Mile Drive, but the Cypress tree located on the left side of the 14th green at Pebble Beach Golf Links was perhaps even popular than its world-famous counterpart on Sunday.
It was not overlooking the Pacific Ocean, standing alone or emerging rather improbably from a rock, but it did stand witness to a few improbable events during the final round of the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.
The 14th hole – Cypress included – nearly led to the demise of Steve Lowery Sunday, but it also perhaps saved him from second-place suffering as well.
It was the 14th where Lowery bogeyed, pushing the deficit to three strokes behind leader Vijay Singh, who looked practically untouchable at that point. It was also the 14th where Singh began to collapse down the stretch.
Holding a three-stroke lead with five holes to play, Singh bogeyed three straight times and lost in a one-hole playoff to Lowery, who snapped a winless skid dating back seven years and 199 tournaments.
“I’ve played a lot of good golf,” Lowery said. “It seems like most of the tournaments that I’m in there for the win I’ve got to play all the way to the end and then I’ve got to go out and play-off.”
Lowery, who trailed the leader Singh by two strokes early on the back nine, found his approach shot to the 14th green take off like so many others had: It hit up around the left side of the green and then rolled downhill some 20 feet, before it nestled itself under the shade of a lone Cypress tree.
With the Cypress’ low-lying branch, golfers were forced to practically punch their ball out instead of lofting a chip shot on to the green. As a result, Lowery bogeyed the hole and suddenly found himself three strokes behind Singh.
Singh, though, whose approach shot on 13 went wide left of the green, found himself in the same position on 14, and in the same position as Lowery: To the left of the green and under the Cypress.
“I was in control,” Singh said on how he felt before the 14th hole. “I still should have won this tournament. There are no excuses for that.”
Singh’s chip-out left him 15 feet from the pin, and he too bogeyed the 14th to bring Lowery back within two strokes.
But Singh bogeyed 15 and 16 as well, and as he stood on the 17th tee box, awaiting his turn on the par-3 hole, the scoreboard read a four-way tie at 9-under between Singh, Lowery, John Mallinger and Corey Pavin.
But just like that, with the roar of a crowd some 300-yards away, erupting in Lowery’s birdie putt on the 17th green, the scores quickly revealed Singh in second place.
“I’m very disappointed. I let one slip away. I didn’t think I was gonna lose that,” Singh said afterward. “The shot on 14 wasn’t a bad shot, it just went off the green and I made a bogey and then all of a sudden, I don’t know what happened.”
After hitting par on 17, Singh needed a birdie on 18 for any chance to force a playoff. Even from 250 yards out, though, where Singh stood sizing up his second shot to the 18th green, he witnessed Lowery’s failed chance at birdie in front of him, as the 305th-ranked golfer threw up his putter after rimming out what would have been the likely clincher.
As the 11th-ranked golfer, Singh sat 50 yards out and lofted a chip shot that came within two feet of the pin. He would birdie for 10-under and force a playoff.
In the one-hole playoff on 18, however, Lowery hit birdie, while Singh hit a pair of bunkers on the way to a par.
“It’s not a matter of him giving it to you, it’s a matter of are you gonna go out there and win it,” Lowery said.
At 47, Lowery is the oldest winner in the 71-year history of the AT&T, and earns $1.08 million for first place.
Despite the bogey on 14, which nearly took him off the first-place radar, Lowery emerged rather improbably.
“When you’re playing Pebble Beach … I was so focused on playing the golf course and beating the golf course that I was really not that focused on what everyone else was doing,” Lowery said. “I was more focused on beating the golf course than where I was in the tournament.”
Note: The pro-am team of Fredrik Jacobson and Bill Walters took first place with 250, 10 strokes better than second place … Lowery finished with a 69-71-70-68, while Singh was 70-70-67-71 through four rounds … Pavin and Mallinger tied for third place with Dudley Hart, who came on in the final hole to finish 9-under.