Musings: Vijay finally wins with PGA on horizon

I’m not sure if Vijay Singh is a praying man, but if ever there was a time to close your eyes and put the outcome in the hands of the Almighty, it was Sunday, when Singh faced one final knee-knocking three-footer to win his first WGC crown at the Bridgestone Invitational.

To his credit, Singh treated the putt like it was Thursday morning instead of Sunday afternoon. He walked up, struck the putt, watched it disappear and raised his arms to celebrate a victory that has been a year and a half in the making, one that was almost erased by one of the poorer short putting performances by a winner in recent memory.

For the week, Singh faced 19 putts from four to eight feet on the bent grass greens at Firestone Country Club. He made nine of them. That’s a fine percentage if you’ve got a bat in your hands. With a putter, not so much.

Fortunately, Singh’s ballstriking was nearly flawless. He split the tight fairways at Firestone with his booming drives, ranking fifth in the field in driving distance and 11th in accuracy. He was fifth in greens in regulation, and he broke par on 20 of the 72 holes, a number eclipsed at the Bridgestone only by Tiger Woods’ 23 in 2000. His 10-under finish was two strokes better than Woods’ winning score last year.

Just imagine what an above-average week with the flat stick would have done for him.

Fortunately for Singh, Phil Mickelson was staging a mini-collapse of his own, robbing fans of a true head-to-head duel between the two men battling for the title of this generation’s No. 2 player. Mickelson built a one-stroke lead through 14 holes on Sunday before making three bogeys on the final four holes thanks to faulty bunker play. He finished two shots back.

Stuart Appleby made a late charge before a birdie putt on 18 stayed right, and Singh’s playing partner, Lee Westwood, missed prime birdie opportunities on 17 and 18 to finish tied with Appleby, one shot behind Singh.

The 45-year-old Singh made four birdies over a five-hole stretch on the front nine, then saw his putter desert him. He badly missed an eight-footer for par on 13 and a four-footer for birdie on 16 that would have given him some breathing room. On 17, he left his 25-foot birdie putt four feet short and finally found the cup with his par putt.

“I started missing five- and six-footers,” Singh said. “I tried to hit it as close as possible so I didn’t leave myself any putts.”

But it all came down to one last three-footer from Singh’s balky belly putter. After leaving what would have been a clinching birdie putt on 18 some three feet short and watching Westwood miss his birdie try, Singh marched up, placed his ball and somehow coaxed the winning putt into the cup. Suddenly, the two-time winner of the PGA Championship enters this week’s major on the short list of contenders.

“It gives me a lot of confidence,” he said. “You know, I struck the ball really well, especially with my irons. Except for the second day, my driver was really good all week. But it puts me in a really good frame of mind going into next week and the rest of the season.”

He might want to lose the belly putter, though. No man has ever won a major using the long stick, and Singh can’t expect to win this one if he putts like he did at Firestone.

Living History

Singh set one record on Sunday and extended another. With his 32nd win on the PGA Tour, he passes Harry Cooper as the all-time leader in Tour victories by a non-American-born player. It was also his 20th win since turning 40, adding to his ongoing record. “I have a great trainer who’s taken me to the next level, and I think he’s done wonders for me,” said the ageless one. “I’ve got to give all the kudos to him.”

Glory’s Last Shot

That’s the slogan that the PGA and the TV guys use to hype the PGA Championship, and given the seemingly interminable gulf between the PGA and the next major, the Masters in April, it’s an appropriate way to frame the tournament. A missed opportunity at the PGA leads to eight full months of soul-searching before the next chance at major glory presents itself.

Of the 89 winners of the event, 31 have only the one PGA victory on their major ledgers. It’s the major that gives the journeyman Tour pro the best chance to grab the glory, because it most resembles a regular Tour event. Players like Jeff Sluman, Wayne Grady, Mark Brooks and Bob Tway don’t leap to mind as being among the game’s elite, but they each can claim a PGA Championship.

“The courses (at the PGA Championship) are set up in a way to be not just fairer, but scoring tends to be lower in terms of par,” said Padraig Harrington. “More players can feel comfortable when they are making birdies rather than just pars. So it tends, especially by the end of the week, there's a few more players in competition. You definitely have more people with a chance at the PGA.”

So who has the best chance to kiss the Wanamaker Trophy next Sunday? Here’s a short list of contenders.

• The PGA Tour’s hottest player is finally going to make an appearance at a major championship. After missing the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open to focus on his quest for the U.S. Ryder Cup team, Kenny Perry will play in the major in which he has had the most success, including a playoff loss in 1996.

• K.J. Choi has had an up-and-down season, but he’s coming off a solid performance at the British Open, despite a final-round 79. A victory at the PGA or any major would be the first for an Asian player. Choi seems like a likely candidate for such a breakthrough.

• Anthony Kim is staking his claim on golf’s headlines in Tiger Woods’ absence. The young prodigy has won twice this year and was in contention at the British Open.

• Phil Mickelson has posted disappointing performances at this year’s majors, but he has won twice and is a leading candidate for Player of the Year. He finished T94 at the 1996 U.S. Open at Oakland Hills — not a hopeful sign. Before his late collapse at the Bridgestone, he was starting to resemble the 2005-era Phil, so there’s hope.

• Steve Stricker seems an unlikely choice to win a major, given his limited length off the tee. But nobody save Woods played better golf down the stretch of the 2007 season than Stricker, and he’s coming off a T7 finish at the British Open. The PGA is the likeliest location for his major breakthrough; he was runner-up in the event in 1998.

• Vijay Singh has won two PGA Championships, but he’s still stinging from missed cuts at the event in 2006 and 2007. Time may be running out on Vijay, but his win at the Bridgestone proves that he could mount one last stand at Oakland Hills. But for the love of Pete, please start making some short putts, would you?

• Tiger Woods has twice pulled off the British-PGA two-fer, in 2000 and 2006. Nick Price did it in 1994, and Walter Hagen in 1924. In golf’s history, that’s it. Could Padraig Harrington join that threesome in achieving this rare feat? It seems unlikely, since Harrington’s best PGA finish is a T17 back in 2002. But his confidence is sky-high, and he was one bad round away from contending at the Bridgestone. He bears watching.

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