PGA Championship: A look back at 100 years of tournament history
By Bill Felber
2009: Y.E. Who?
When the field teed it up for the 2009 PGA Championship, Tiger Woods was the prohibitive favorite. Returning from injuries that sidelined him during the second half of the 2008 season, Woods was, in essence, defending his 2007 title.
More significantly, he was the holder of 14 major championships, among them the 2008 U.S. Open, which he had won in a stirring playoff with Rocco Mediate. That event, too, burnished Woods’ reputation as nigh onto unbeatable in tense, head-to-head showdowns.
Which was what made the events at Hazeltine National so unthinkable. Fourteen times in previous majors, Woods had taken the lead or a share of it into the final round, and all 14 times he had emerged as the champion.
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So when Woods shot rounds of 67-70-71 to lead at every stage of of the first three rounds, the outcome entering Sunday’s final round appeared to be a foregone conclusion. And in the unlikely event that anybody did make a run at Woods, it certainly wouldn’t be Yong-eun Yang, the unknown Korean professional who held a share of second place, two strokes back.
Yet the event still needs to be played out, and when it was played out on Sunday it was Yang, not Woods, who emerged with the victory. Yang birdied the third hole, then found himself tied for the lead when Woods bogeyed the fourth. A birdie at 11 briefly restored Woods’ lead, but he bogeyed 12 to fall back into the tie.
The event turned at the short par 4 14th. Yang drove to just off the green, then chipped in for an eagle two to outdo Woods’ birdie. When Yang birdied the final hole and Woods bogeyed, Yang gained a three stroke victory that ranked with Bob Hamilton’s 1944 takedown of Byron Nelson as among the event’s least probable.
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What we didn’t know then was that it would take nearly ten more years for Woods to return to the winner’s circle at a major. As the PGA Championship begins its second century, more history is certain to be made at the pros’ major.