Best of the Players Championship: The 25 Most Dominant Performances
By Bill Felber
Entering the 2009 Players, Henrik Stenson had a well-established decade-long, world-wide reputation that included a half dozen titles of significance on three continents. He came in as the ninth-ranked player in the World Golf Rankings. What he had not done was defeat a solid PGA Tour field in a medal play event.
That changed on a single Sunday in May of 2009 at Sawgrass. On a day when the rest of the field averaged 73.5 and the third-round leader posted a 79, Stenson humbled the layout with a 66 to win by four strokes.
“We all know he has all the talent in the world to do this,” Tiger Woods told reporters afterward about Stenson. Woods had entered the final round tied with Stenson and four other players, all of them five strokes behind leader Alex Cejka. But Cejka’s 79 killed his chances, and Woods’ 73 left him well behind Stenson’s six-birdie, bogey-free round.
Stenson started uneventfully, allowing Cejka to come back to him. That the leader did, going five over on the first six holes. Then Stenson made his move. He birdied seven, nine, 11 and 13, suddenly finding himself three shots in front – and not of either Cejka or Woods. Birdies at 15 and 16 padded the cushion to four ahead of Ian Poulter and John Mallinger. Absent all finishing pressure, he made uneventful pars on 17 and 18 to beat Poulter by four.