This final round of the 2010 Masters is no different than what we've seen, year after year, giving us drama and excitement right down to the last hole and even the last putt. I think we have to look at this one and say that Lee Westwood played a good round of golf, shoot one under, but he didn't lose this match. Phil Michelson won it, shooting 5 under par and playing a really spectacular back nine, starting with getting it up and down on the fairway after chipping it out of the woods on #10 or an unbelievable par 4.
He made a great birdie on #12 that but the shot that will stick in our minds more than any is the shot out of the woods from between two trees to the green when he knocked it about 6 feet on #13 which gave him an eagle putt. He missed the putt but the ball raced by what looked to be four or five feet. He made a good putt coming back to make his birdie.
But I think the big thing that stands out in my mind about this tournament was the fact that he had a very long putt on #17 that looked like a really good putt and almost had a chance of going in. It must have rolled at least 6 feet by the hole. That was an extremely difficult put. He just stood up and center cut it to preserve his two shot lead going into the last hole.
The thing he had to worry about was that Westwood was playing really good golf. He had just birdied the hole before his putt and Phil knew he had to make it to keep that two shot lead. Looking at 18, if Westwood birdies and he boggies, it's a tie and a playoff.
The thing that really impressed me, from a teacher's standpoint and being a strategist as far as playing golf is that even after Westwood teed off first and just and absolutely bombed one down the middle of the fairway and had a very short iron to the green, Phil stood his guns and hit a three wood off the tee.
As I've said in previous articles about playing, a fairway bunker is not a bunker if you hit a club that can't reach it. Phil hit a three wood and came up what looked about 15 yards short. They never said what distance he had or what club he used. It looked to be he hit about an 8 iron and hit an absolute great shot to the front pin, just over the bunker. The ball landed about pin high and rolled what appeared to be just a little away from the hole, about 12 or 15 feet.
Westwood hit a good shot to the green and missed the putt. Phil had an easy two putt to win and he holed out to win with a birdie on the last hole.
Again, the point is, is that I still think that, if you have bunkers in play, like that first hole where K.J Choi drove in the bunker. They said he hit an 8 iron out of that bunker. Well, if he'd just laid up left of it and not hit it in, he'd probably have no more than a 7 iron. How much difference is there between a 7 and 8 iron? He hit a great 8 iron out of the bunker. But if his ball would have rolled a little farther forward up towards the lip, that might have been an extraordinarily difficult shot. But a 7 iron from the fairway is still a lot easier shot to hit the green and hit it closer than you will out of a fairway bunker.
As for laying up at the bunker, if Phil brings that kind of play into his game on a permanent basis, we'll see him winning a lot more tournaments and majors.
Again, be like Phil the way he played 18. Keep those fairway bunkers out of play if it's only going to mean hitting one or two more clubs to a green where you're staying with a short to mid range club. You going to find it's a lot easier playing the fairways. Like I always say, the best way to play golf is fairways and greens.
The Surge!