Introducing Your 2009 PGA Champion: Y.E. Yang

In what could only be called a stunning finish to the PGA Championship at Hazeltine, the winner of the tournament turned out to be someone other than Tiger Woods.

Woods, who led the tournament by a comfortable margin for most of the time, found himself in trouble for most of the day today, and allowed Y.E. Yang to take advantage and win his first ever major championship.

Yang did what others have been unable to do here recently, and that’s take advantage of Tiger’s mistakes.

Oh, and a chip-in eagle at the par four 14th helped quite a bit too.

Both men entered the hole tied at 6-under par, but Yang changed the whole complexion of the tournament with his miraculous shot. Woods managed to birdie the hole to stay only one shot back, however, he could never put himself in the right position to overtake Yang.

Yang made it a little stressful for himself at the par three 17th hole, where he had a short putt that could have all but put the championship trophy in his bag, after Tiger had bogeyed the hole. But Yang yanked the putt just right of where it needed to go, and picked up a bogey himself, leaving his lead at one shot.

So with a one shot lead heading into the 18th hole, the question would be if Yang would be able to keep the nerves in check and do the unthinkable.

Well, he did.

Yang hit an efficient first shot, but his second shot was where he may have locked up the championship. He stuck his iron shot to around eight feet from the hole, while Tiger saw his second shot land in the thick rough around the green.

Tiger chipped out past the hole, and Yang then calmly knocked down his birdie putt to seal the victory.

Tiger finished with a 75 on the day, and at 5-under for the tournament.

Yang shot a 70, and three strokes ahead of Woods at 8-under for the championship.

The man who everyone though would challenge Woods today, Padraig Harrington, once again saw one hole determine his entire tournament.

Harrington hit another shot in the water, bringing back memories of the Bridgestone last week, and proceeded to make an eight on the par three 8th. He finished with a 78 on the day and even par for the tournament.

Meanwhile, Lee Westwood and the young gun Rory McIlroy tied for second. Both finished at 3-under for the championship.

Other notables:

Lucas Glover -2

Ernie Els, Henrik Stenson -1

Zach Johnson E

Hunter Mahan, Vijay Singh, Tim Clark +1

Ian Poulter, Corey Pavin, Ross Fisher +2

Phil Mickelson +12

Here’s the final leaderboard over at Golf.com.

QUICK THOUGHTS:

- Wow. That’s all I have to say right now. This will definitely be one that’ll be talked about for quite some time. I’ll need an entire post dedicated to my thoughts on this thing.

Feel free to leave your comments! Have a great night everyone!

Tags: 2009 PGA Champion, eagle, golf, Padraig Harrington, PGA, PGA Championship, PGA final round, Tiger Woods, Y.E. Yang