O’Hair returns to the Top –“You see these guys like Tiger, like Phil, and they come out there and play and win and it's almost like men against schoolboys,'' O'Hair said. “What are they doing differently than me? And you try to learn from them, but all of a sudden, you get caught in this vicious circle of trying to be somebody you're not.”
“I'm not Tiger. I'm far from Tiger,'' he said. “I'm far from Phil.’’ Sean O’Hair is the winner of the 2008 PODS Championship.
O'Hair rallied from a three-shot deficit at the PODS Championship, pulled ahead when Stewart Cink suffered a four-hole meltdown, and closed with a 2-under 69 for a two-shot victory at Innisbrook.
The victory will move him into the top 40 in the world ranking, giving him a spot in the $8 million World Golf Championship at Doral in two weeks. And it earns him a trip to Augusta National for the Masters next month, another surprise.
Cink seems to be having some problems with closing events. Recently, he lost to Tiger Woods at the World Golf Championships by a substantial margin. “I'm a little shell-shocked and a little bit angry,'' Cink said. “I'm extremely frustrated after this. What happened to me - what I allowed to happen to me - is going to make me a better player in the future. But I've got some soul-searching to do.''
Sean O'Hair felt as if he was doing everything required of a winner except winning.
Despite long hours on the practice range, he found himself near the bottom of the leaderboard, if he even made the cut. A weekend off at the Honda Classic last week gave him ample time to visit with his father-in-law, and the message finally got through.
"He told me how he believed in me, how he felt I was on the right track, and if I started believing in myself, everything would happen," O'Hair said Sunday after winning the PODS Championship.
For O'Hair, a big celebration is in order.
He hadn't won since 2005, when he was a rookie and golf felt easy. He had fallen to No. 75 in the world and had no plans the second week of April. But his victory moved him into the top 40 in the world, making him eligible for Doral and Augusta National.
"When I won [the first time], it just kind of happened," O'Hair said, wiping tears from his eyes. "I didn't really appreciate it. I thought I was good enough to do this every year. But it's been such a struggle to get to this point again. This is awesome, and I'm going to enjoy it."
With his second place finish, Ruyji Imada's moved into the top 10 in the FedEx Cup standings and qualify for Doral. D.J. Trahan, Daniel Chopra and J.B. Holmes also qualified for the $8 million WGC through the FedEx Cup points. Players can still qualify through the top 50 in the world and top 10 in the FedEx Cup standings after the Arnold Palmer Invitational next week. O'Hair is doing some renovation on his house near Philadelphia, and before leaving for a three-week trip to Florida, they called PODS to store some furniture. "We've got one of those PODS [Portable-On-Demand Storage] in our driveway," wife Jackie said. "That has to count for something."
It took 25 holes, but Langer raises the Trophy –Bernhard Langer outlasted Jay Haas in the Toshiba Classic on Sunday, birdieing the final hole of regulation to force a playoff and winning with a birdie when Haas missed a 3-footer on the seventh extra hole.
"You hate to get that far and not be able to finish it off," said Haas, the 2007 winner. "I hit a pretty good putt. ... I didn't think I missed it.
Langer, the 50-year-old German star who won the 1985 and 1993 Masters, has two victories in nine career Champions Tour starts. Last October, he won the Administaff Small Business Classic in Texas in his fourth event on the 50-and-over tour.
After bogeying the par-3 17th to drop a stroke behind, Langer made a 12-foot birdie putt on the par-5 18th to force the playoff at 14-under 199. Haas closed with a 6-under 65, while Langer had a 69 on the Newport Beach Country Club course.
Both players two-putted from about 30 feet for birdies on the first extra hole, the 18th, then traded pars on the par-4 16th. On the third playoff hole, the 17th, Langer matched Haas' par after driving into a greenside bunker.
The playoff then shifted back to 18, where both players made pars after hitting their second shots into greenside bunkers. They then traded birdies on 16, with Langer holing out from 28 feet and Haas answering from 13 feet.
"That was big. I had a feeling he would make it," Langer said. "My putt was able to trickle in."
After pars on 17, Langer finished off Haas with the birdie on No. 18.
The seven-hole playoff fell short of the tournament record of nine, set by Bob Murphy in a 1997 victory over Jay Sigel and matched in 2001 in Jose Maria Canizares' victory over Gil Morgan. The Champions Tour record is 10, set by David Graham’s victory over Dave Stockton in the 1998 Royal Caribbean Classic.
Stats and quotes courtesy of golf.com and espn.com.
