Simpson lands US Open as Furyk blows it
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, June 19, 2012
Webb Simpson refused to think of himself as a US Open champion until he sat with his nervous wife in a quiet corner of the locker room on Sunday, staring in disbelief at a television as Jim Furyk and Graeme McDowell tried to catch him.
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Webb Simpson savours success as he poses with the championship trophy at the US Open in San Francisco. |
He was up against a pair of major champions. He was at The Olympic Club, where the wrong guy always wins a US Open. Simpson should have known how this would end.
He did his part with four birdies in a five-hole stretch around the turn, and a tough par from the collar of the 18th green for a 2-under 68.
It was enough to capture his first major when Furyk bogeyed two of his last three holes, and McDowell couldn't recover from a bad start and too many tee shots in the rough.
"Oh, wow," Simpson said when McDowell's 25-foot birdie putt to force a playoff stayed left of the cup. Simpson emerged from a fog-filled final round as a US Open champion, and he put two more names into the graveyard of champions.
"I never really wrapped my mind around winning," said Simpson, who finished at 1-over 281 to win in only his fifth time at a major. "This place is so demanding, and so all I was really concerned about was keeping the ball in front of me and making pars."
Olympic is known as the "graveyard of champions" because proven major winners who were poised to win the US Open - Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson and Payne Stewart - all lost out to the underdog.
No one was more disgusted than Furyk, in control for so much of the final round until he snap-hooked his tee shot on the par-5 16th hole to fall out of the lead for the first time all day, and was unable to get it back. Needing a birdie on the final hole, he hit into the bunker. He crouched and clamped his teeth onto the shaft of his wedge. Furyk made bogey on the final hole and closed with a 74, a final round without a single birdie.
Furyk was surprised that the USGA moved the tee up 100 yards on the 16th hole to play 569 yards. It was reachable in two shots for some players, though the shape of the hole featured a sharp turn to the left.
"There's no way when we play our practice rounds you're going to hit a shot from a tee 100 yards up unless someone tells you," Furyk said. "But the rest of the field had that same shot to hit today, and I'm pretty sure no one hit as (bad) a shot as I did. I have no one to blame but myself.
"I was tied for the lead, sitting on the 16th tee. I've got wedges in my hand, or reachable par 5s, on the way in and one birdie wins the golf tournament. I'm definitely frustrated."
McDowell shared second place with Michael Thompson, who closed with a 67 and waited two hours to see if it would be good enough.
Tiger Woods, starting five shots behind, played the first six holes in 6-over par and was never a factor. He shot 73 and finished six strokes back.
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