Last Chance For Major Glory
The 2012 PGA Championship Preview

By Pete Pappas 
On twitter @PGAPappas
And on blogspot at PGAPappas.Blogspot

The PGA Championship is thought to be the least prestigious of the four majors on Tour.  But it has something The Masters, the U.S. Open, and the Open Championship all do not have - combined.

One last chance. 

 

When the iconic Wanamaker Trophy is raised triumphantly at the conclusion of the 94^th PGA Championship by one of the 150-plus competitors in the strongest field of the season, the 2012 majors will all be in the books.  And that ratchets up the pressure with each consecutive day, with each consecutive hole, until everyone just runs out of holes to play.

Last call for drinks... bar closing down... gettin’ the shakes now.  Uh-oh.  One last chance for major glory at The Ocean Course on Kiawah Island Golf Resort.

One last chance for redemption. 

 

For Phil Mickelson, who cost himself the Masters with a disastrous final day triple-bogey on No. 4, highlighted by sloppy execution, and two shots played right-handed with his iron upside-down.

“Phil being Phil” isn’t fun when it costs you a major.  “Lefty” has a chance to redeem himself for the one he left behind on hallowed grounds.

One last chance to get the monkey off your back. 

 

For Luke Donald, who missed three cuts in his last nine majors.  Donald is the No. 1 player in the World, but knows there’s one glaring hole in his resume, winless in the majors. 

And that “elephant in his trophy room” belligerently grows bigger, more disruptive, and more hostile with each major he doesn’t win.  Donald can make the bulldozing beast disappear in the blink of an eye with a victory this week. 

One last chance to erase recent painful memories. 

For Jim Furyk, who surrendered his 54-hole U.S. Open lead in June, and tumbled from poised to poisoned in “a San Francisco minute."  Two bogeys over the final three holes at Olympic completed Furyk's agonizing collapse.

Furyk suffered the cruel backhand of fate again at WGC-Bridgestone last week when his five foot putt at No. 18 slid right, handing victory to Keegan Bradley.  “I’ve known it’s a cruel game for a long time,” Furyk said, suppressing his devastation afterwards.

But a Furyk victory this week would take the image of a man who appeared to contemplate impaling himself upon his “Fang” putter, and release it gently into intemperate Atlantic winds. 

For Adam Scott, who let his four-shot lead in the Open Championship vanish faster than naive innocence.  Scott drew infamous comparisons to fellow Australian Greg Norman and his own ill-famed 1996 Masters demise. 

Scott lipped out a three-foot par putt on No. 16, lost his approach shot in the wind on No. 17, and then on No. 18 managed to find the single worst place to hit his ball, into 18-inch rough.  Scott's ball, alongside his dreams of becoming a Claret Jug champion, was rudely buried right there. 

But no more parallels to “The Shark.”  Scott’s injuries and torments will heal in an instant, his confidence emerge unscathed.  If only Scott can manage this week to pull victory from the “jaws” of defeat,  rather than defeat from the “jaws” of victory.

And of course one last chance to inch tantalizingly closer to this sport’s ultimate prize.

For Tiger Woods, who by his own admission knows breaking Jack Nicklaus’ pinnacle record for most major victories is a career endeavor.  Woods needs to haul one major victory every two years to overtake Nicklaus by the same age the 46-year old Nicklaus was when he won that final 18^th major. 

Woods is the odds-on favorite to win his fifth PGA Championship this week at Kiawah.  And he’s the only player on Tour to notch three victories this season, probably good enough for “Player of the Year," and certainly “Comeback Player of the Year." 

But no matter how cool and collected the “Talented Mr. Woods” appears, he knows the window is closing on breaking Jack's record.  And Woods name again on the Wanamaker Trophy would go a long ways toward making him the most proficient golfer in majors history. 

The field this week is a virtual “Who’s Who” of golf royalty, and includes the Top-10 players in the FedEx Cup standings, the Tour Money List, and the Official World Golf Rankings.  28 winners on Tour this season, and 32 major winners will all be teeing it up for the final major. 

 

Defending champion Keegan Bradley, U.S. Open champion Webb Simpson, Masters champion Bubba Watson, Rory McIlroy, Lee Westwood, Matt Kuchar, Justin Rose, and Graeme McDowell are all in South Carolina looking to put their names on the Wanamaker Trophy.  And it would be foolish to look past any of them. 

 

“It’s just catching the right guy at the right week and things can happen,” 2007 Masters champion Zach Johnson said of winning majors.  “A lot more players have chances to win major championships,” this years Open champion Ernie Els added.  “Nowadays it’s basically the whole field,” said 2011 U.S. Open champion McIlroy discussing the depth of talent on Tour today. 

 

The PGA Championship offers one last chance to make the season a successful one, on the strength of just this victory alone.  However that also means one last chance to fall flat, to meltdown, to throw one away - again.  For those players who’ve been on the 54-hole lead merry-go-round of misery this season, that means at best, the sky will stop falling for only one of them. 

And for any one of the world’s greatest players in the field this week, at least some will be mocked by the growling winds of Kiawah Island.  Boisterously vanquished one by one.  As they all journey through the bowels of this Pete Dye leviathan looking for the season’s last chance for major glory.

Pete on twitter @PGAPappas 
And for more interviews and articles visit Pete on blogspot at PGAPappas.Blogspot

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