Woods: My putting cost me the title

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August 17, 2009

Tiger Woods has blamed a bad day with his putter in the final round for his unexpected defeat at the US PGA.

Tiger Woods lost his unbeaten record as a 54-hole major leader and blamed a bad day with his putter for his shock US PGA Championship defeat to South Korea’s YE Yang.
World number one Woods turned in his worst putting performance of the week on Sunday as he conceded five shots to Yang in the final round to lose by three strokes in the fourth and final major of a comeback year from major knee surgery that yielded five victories but no majors.
All 14 of his previous major victories had come afrter he led or shared the lead after 54 holes, but Woods saw that streak brought to a halt and he said it all boiled down to the 33 putts it took to get his ball in the hole.
“I felt I played well enough to win today,” said Woods, who had claimed two of his five victories in the previous two Sundays.
“And the frustrating thing is I didn’t make any putts and that’s something I had been doing over the last three weeks.
“I’ve been putting pretty good, the last three days, the last three weeks.
“Today was not very good at all. I had a few misreads out there and as well I hit some bad putts, too.
“So it was just a bad day at the wrong time and that’s the way it goes.”
Woods accepted his poor putting had contributed to him missing out on the title but credited Yang’s performance and said it was as much the Korean winning it as it was him throwing it away.
“It’s both. I mean, I certainly was in control of the tournament most of the day.
“I was playing well, hitting the ball well. I was making nothing, but still either tied for the lead or ahead.
“And YE played great all day. I don’t think he really missed a shot all day. He just made that mistake at 17 (a missed putt that led to bogey) but other than that, he hit it great all day.
“It was a fun battle. Unfortunately, I just didn’t make the putts when I needed to make them.”
Woods said the critical moment when the momentum transferred to Yang had been at the par-three 13th and par-four 14th holes, with the Korean holing his bunker shot for eagle at the latter to go in front for the first time.
“As far as the tournament switching, 13, I stuffed it in there. He made a mistake, hit it in the left bunker, blasted out. I missed my putt, he made his.
“Then he chipped in on the next hole. So that two-hole stretch turned it. If I make my putt, he doesn’t chip in, you know, he doesn’t make his putt on 13.
“A lot of different scenarios could have happened in those two holes but I didn’t execute.
“I didn’t make the putt, and certainly he did, and he chipped in as well.”