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Tiger Woods punched the air in unadulterated exhilaration. His stage; the 18th Green at Bay Hill, home to some of his very best performances. He'd just drilled a 16 foot birdie putt and ended his longest 'no win' drought on the PGA Tour. In the last embers of day light, flash lights exploded and his crowd screamed their acclaim. Tiger was back and had just performed his biggest ever final round fight-back victory. Woods had landed his 66th PGA Tour title and sent a message: Bring On The Masters!
Its There! Tiger plays to his crowd on the 18th.
Lets start with the Golf Betting System performance. Tipster Steve Bamford produced a triple place success at Bay Hill. His e/w tips of O'Hair (40-1 General), Watney (40-1 General) and Top 10 tip of Verplank (9-1 Bet 365) generated 23.8 pts, but it could have been so much more!
Our GBS Bay Hill predictor picks also had success. Watney topped our predictor and was available at 4-1 (Bet 365) to Top 10. Kenny Perry featured highly in the predictor and his Top 10 finish was available at 11/4 (General) pre-event.
The final round was all too predictable (yesterday we highlighted Tiger at 4.2 on Betfair to win), but you couldn't help but admire Tiger Wood's performance late last night. After O'Hair had thrown away three shots in his final four holes on Saturday, Woods could smell fear and seized upon it. Two birdies in the first three holes put O'Hair under intense pressure and he couldn't cope with it, bogeying the third. The lead was down to two shots.
Fast forward to the 14th and the real turning point of the round. O'Hair misses a birdie putt by millimetres to go two shots clear, with Tiger in trouble to make par. Woods makes his 15 foot par saver. Game over!
Woods then birdied the 15th to go level with O'Hair. Woods missed the fairway at 16 but O'Hair sent his second shot with a hop off the bank and into water on the way to a bogey. Woods laid up 109 yards from the hole but his third shot was a beauty, a pitching wedge to inside four feet. He holed his par putt and with two to play was at five under and alone in the lead for the first time since winning the US Open from Rocco Mediate at the 91st hole last June.
There was still a twist in the tail as Woods bogeyed the 17th to fall back into a tie at four under par heading to the last. Both players found the fairway off the 18th tee but while O'Hair sent his second shot to inside 39 feet, his rival put the pressure on by placing his second 16 feet from the hole. O'Hair sent his putt to three feet, leaving Woods to putt for the title. He had needed a 25-foot birdie to see off Bart Bryant on the same hole 12 months ago, with O'Hair watching him as his chance had gone earlier in the round.
Selected Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard 2009 - Scorecards and Totals
275 Tiger Woods 68 69 71 67
276 Sean O'Hair 67 65 71 73
278 Zach Johnson 72 69 68 69
279 Nick Watney 67 71 73 68, Pat Perez 70 70 70 69, John Senden (Aus) 70 69 73 67, Scott Verplank 70 69 71 69
280 Kenny Perry 70 71 72 67, Daniel Chopra (Swe) 68 71 72 69, Jason Gore 65 70 74 71
281 Kevin Na 69 70 76 66, Ben Crane 70 69 75 67, Robert Allenby (Aus) 71 65 74 71, Lucas Glover 71 71 69 70, Webb Simpson 70 71 70 70, Padraig Harrington (Irl) 70 68 73 70
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Apr 2nd - Apr 5th 2009
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