Championship of Milwaukee

U.S. Bank Championship of Milwaukee
By Jeremy Church

The British Open wasn’t the reality show of last month’s U.S. Open many fans were undoubtedly hoping for, but Tiger put on a display of shot-making with a wise game plan that may rank as the best performance of all his now 11 major victories.

What was exciting for purists was that Tiger didn’t use driver last week (he used it once), opting instead for, yup, his 2 iron, and occasionally his 3-wood off the tee. The trusty and true 2 iron. It’s almost impossible to not hit a 2 iron straight. And impossible to hit it 300 yards, which is why he used it---to avoid those nasty pot bunkers. It worked all week because Tiger pretended his other long irons were eights or nines or wedges---what he’d normally hit into greens if he was using driver.

On his second hole Sunday, paired with Sergio Garcia, he was 100 yards farther back in the fairway than Garcia, who took driver off the tee. Garcia’s strategy may have seemed Lefty-like and stupid, but you could argue that if he got his second shots in closer than Tiger and gave himself more birdie opportunities on the par fours, he would have had a chance to catch Tiger. Here’s what happened instead: Tiger, again, from 100 yards farther back than Garcia, hit his second shot inside of where Garcia’s ended up. Then he lagged close for an easy tap in par. Garcia three-putted for bogey. The same thing happened on the next hole and Tiger’s one shot lead over Garcia was three just like that. He added an eagle on the 5th two holes later and the game was over, despite a decent and ever futile charge by Chris DiMarco. After those early three-putts, Garcia looked every bit the clown in his canary yellow get up. It was a substance over style kind of day, kind of tournament, and the biggest prude was Woods. A 2 iron?!?! Good on ya, Tiger.