Tiger Got Yanged

I realize we have become so accustomed to Tiger Woods winning golf tournaments--especially ones in which he is leading on Sunday--that when he actually fails to close it out, it's so easy to assume that Tiger lost as opposed to him getting beat. Sunday, he got beat. Plain and simple.

It seems as though sports fans, as well as sports media, love to throw out the word "choke" anytime a player or team of high profile loses--particularly in upset fashion. Do some people really get more satisfaction out of someone losing versus someone excelling?

I'm sorry, but I just don't roll like that. I love a good story, and Y.E. Yang may be the best story of this golf season. Tiger didn't give him the PGA Championship. Yang took it!

On a day when only 10 players broke par, Yang shot the best score of the day. Down the stretch of a major championship, Yang went eagle, par, par, bogey, birdie. Under the most immense pressure of the tournament, Yang brushed that pressure off his shoulders like a pimp in a vice squad raid. The playa made plays.

As far as Tiger choking goes, child please! He shot 75 in the final round, not 82. It wasn't like he was spraying the ball all over the course, he just didn't make any putts.
　
"I hit the ball great off the tee, hit my irons well," said Tiger. "I did everything I needed to do except for getting the ball in the hole."

So ease up on the choke talk when discussing this year's PGA Championship. Greg Norman choked in the 1996 Masters. Jean van de Velde choked at the 1999 Open Championship. Phil Mickelson choked at the 2006 U.S. Open.

Tiger didn't choke at the 2009 PGA Championship. He simply got Yanged!

TIGER’S TEST RUN

Just spotted this article in an e-mail from http://thegolfchannel.com. Even though his season is officially finished for 2008, it looks as though Tiger Woods is still active in at least one capacity on the PGA Tour.

Tiger Woods is still a candidate for drug testing, even though he will not be competing the rest of the year. But he already knows what to expect, having gone through private testing.

“I’ve done it twice, actually,” Woods said.

Why did he require two tests? Woods didn’t say when the tests were conducted, but both came back negative.

After the first test was clean, he said he changed the brand of amino acid as part of his nutrition program, and wanted to make sure the change didn’t alter the results. He said the second test came back negative, too.