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Wednesday August 19, 2009

Players outside top 30 emerge champs in all four majors

CHASKA (Minnesota): Yang Yong-eun did the unimaginable not once but twice, beating the world’s top golfer in a Sunday final round and proving that Tiger Woods is indeed human after all.

The 37-year-old affable South Korean emerged from golfing obscurity by defeating Woods by two shots to win the 2006 HSBC Champions in Shanghai. Now 33 months later, he validated that victory by rallying past Woods in the final round to win the 91st PGA Championship to become the first Asian to win a major championship.

“You never know in life,” Yong-eun said. “This might be my last win as a golfer, but it sure is a great day.”

It remains to be seen whether Yong-eun has the staying power to win consistently on the PGA Tour. He certainly showed on Sunday he has the physical and mental tools to do it after taming Woods and the Hazeltine National Golf Club, the longest course of any tournament in major championship history.

But one has to wonder if the 110th ranked Yong-eun will win another major or simply become the journeyman who steps it up occasionally to play the role of the spoiler?

Superman had kryptonite, Pete Sampras had Wayne Ferreira and maybe Tiger Woods has Yong-eun.

Graceful loser: Yang Yong-eun is congratulated by Tiger Woods after winning the 91st PGA Championship at the Hazeltine National Golf Club on Sunday. — AP

Sampras won 14 Grand Slam titles in his brilliant tennis career and would blitz the field on most days but had a mediocre record whenever he faced journeyman Ferreira. In their 13 career meetings, Ferreira managed to take six of them.

The South African never cracked the top five in men’s rankings and he never got to face Sampras in a Grand Slam final or he might have a major championship like Yong-eun.

Ferreira says during change-overs he and Sampras would pass each other at the net and Sampras would turn to him and say “Oh, no. Not you again.”

Woods must have been uttering the same phrase on the par-four No. 6 on Sunday when Yong-eun’s tee shot appeared to be heading out of bounds but hit the foot of a course marshal and stayed on the fairway.

Yong-eun saved par on the hole but it could have been a disaster because he had just made his first bogey of the day on No. 5.

“I usually go for broke,” Yong-eun said. “The odds are against me. Nobody’s going to be really disappointed that I lose. So I really had nothing much at stake and that’s how I played.”

Yong-eun had to go back to qualifying school in December, becoming the first player since American John Daly in 1991 to go from qualifying school to PGA champion.

By his own admission, Yong-eun, who didn’t pick up a golf club until age 19, is not sure he can repeat his success over 14-time major winner Woods. Woods has 70 career titles and Yong-eun has just 10 professional wins, including his first on the US PGA Tour at the Honda Classic in March.

“Until I was 19, after I picked up my first golf club, I was like anybody else in the world, an average Joe,” he said. “I don’t consider myself as a great golfer. I’m still more of the lower than average golfer.”

Try telling that to Yong-eun’s caddie A.J. Montecinos who says he has seen first hand the fortitude that gives Yong-eun the inner strength to do what he did in registering one of the biggest upsets in golfing history.

“I have been around some great players and I’ve never been around a more tough mental competitor in my life,” Montecinos said.

“Just the fact that nothing affects him, whether he makes double- or triple-(bogey), he’s just like, ‘No problem.’ Then he just goes about his business.”

It has been a year of surprises in the majors but none were bigger than Yong-eun’s. This is the first time players outside the top 30 have won all four majors in a calendar year.

At the US Masters, Angel Cabrera, who was ranked 69, beat Kenny Perry in a playoff, spoiling the 48-year-old Perry’s chance of becoming the oldest major champion.

World No. 71 Lucas Glover won the US Open under difficult conditions at Bethpage in New York.

In the British Open, Stewart Cink (33rd ranked) foiled the chances of the sentimental favourite Tom Watson in another playoff to win his first major championship.

“You knew it was a matter of time before an Asian-born player was going to win,” said Woods, whose mother is from Thailand.

“If anyone, people would have thought it would be a Korean player, people would have suspected K.J. Choi because he has obviously played well for such a long time.

“Y.E. has now won a couple of big events. He won here in the States. He’s getting better. He’s playing better.” — AFP

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