By Jim Moriarty
Photos By Stephen Szurlej
May 16, 2008
On a May day that must have blown in from March, across a stadium course with more skyboxes than Lambeau Field and the outline of stately Casa Non-Profit in the distance, Sergio Garcia stood on the fiendish 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass, put his putter to his lips and kissed a few demons goodbye. Whoever said no wind blows so ill that it does not do some good certainly must have had this Players championship in mind.
But demons seldom go down without a tussle, both inside and out, and Garcia had to first wrestle his to a draw against Paul Goydos, a man as short off the tee as his wit is long off the podium.
That two guys who sound like headliners in the plaza de toros, Garcia and Goydos, would meet for a playoff in Pete Dye's first circle of hell seemed a fitting result since the first one struck the ball better than anyone else in the field all week and the second one putted it better than anyone else. The G-men tied at five-under-par 283, a shot ahead of Jeff Quinney, who narrowly failed in his bid to become the third matador when he bogeyed the 18th from the back bunker, hardly a capital offense since the hole played statistically tougher than three of the course's par 5s. In the end it was the ball-striker who prevailed but not before he delivered the coup de grāce with the putter everyone loves to hate on the new Bermuda greens kept mercifully slower Sunday in deference to the cyclonic winds.
For the first time, the infamous island 17th was to be the opening hole in a playoff. This was like watching the invention of the iron maiden. Goydos' pitching wedge, the same club he had found the middle of the green with moments before, got caught up in the wind that had calmed to, say, 20 miles per hour from gusts around 40 most of the day, and splashed down in the water. Garcia stepped up and stuck his sand wedge four feet from the hole, and it was all over but the lip lock. "Very impressive," said Goydos, who was the first, and last, player of the week to put a ball in the water at the 17th.
The 28-year-old Spanish l'enfant terrible is the guy younger than 30 with the most wear on his treads, but not since Bernhard Langer has a player of such obvious gifts with such obvious psychoses managed to address those eccentricities so forthrightly, from the re-grip yips to his bunker-raker paranoia, to his latest putting disorder. He is undergoing treatment by the great and powerful wizard, Stan Utley, who pulled a few levers behind the curtain and convinced Garcia he didn't lack courage, all he lacked was a medal. He told him there was nothing wrong with his putting stroke, just a nip here and a tuck there. Sergio clicked his heels together three times and said, "There's no place like Sawgrass."
"There were fundamentals, predominantly to do with set up, that caused him to hit putts with a glancing blow," said Utley. "He knew what it was supposed to feel like. From my standpoint, it wasn't very hard to put him in a position to do that." Of course, residual scar tissue from emotional misses such as the one on the 18th hole at Carnoustie last year remained, but becoming the champion Player of the year could begin to heal those fast, maybe even in time for Torrey Pines and the U.S. Open. "I'm certainly not a psychologist," Utley said, "but I do enjoy encouraging. You can call me an encourager."
For much of the day, good things kept happening to the sentimental favorite, Goydos, whenever he seemed to need it most. And, after all, if you're the single parent of two teenage daughters, what else is there to be scared of? He made a monster downhill putt for birdie at the fourth to stop some early bleeding and pitched in from the rough from 34 yards on the 10th. The 43-year-old Goydos, wearing his alma mater's Long Beach State "Dirtbags" cap he bought in a Lids in the Charlotte, N.C., airport, took a one-shot lead over 47-year-old Kenny Perry into the final round. Perry is a Kentuckian who is so excited about the prospect of playing on the U.S. Ryder Cup side at Valhalla GC in Louisville he was actually willing to win the Players to get there but fell short with a 43 on the back nine.
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