Bryant golf's big mover in 2005
BY Bruce Young | US PGA Tour | 2005 PGA Tour Championship | Wrap | 07 Nov 2005
If someone had approached Bart Bryant in early September last year and told him that within twelve months he would claim three USPGA Tour titles including the Memorial and the Tour Championship and at that Tour Championship he would win by six, he would likely have had that person committed to a home for the mentally unstable.
Well fourteen months later that is exactly what has happened. A win at the Valero Texas Open in September last year started an amazing run of events that saw the then 42-year-old win the Memorial by one over Fred Couples in May and finally this week lead from start to finish to win the Tour championship against the game’s greatest players.
Leading into the Texas Open last year he had just $260,000 in earnings for the season and was once again looking at a return to the Tour School for the umpteenth time. His three shot win over Patrick Sheehan saw him race to more than US$950,000 for the season and US$600,000 more than his previous best in 2002. They were giddy heights for the battler but in 2005 they would get even higher.
At the Memorial Tournament he beat a quality field and here this week he treated a strong field with such disdain that it might well have felt surreal to him.
His is a great story. At the age of 42 to move from journeyman status to that of one of the stars of the USPGA Tour and have more than US$3 million in 2005 earnings is fairytale stuff and gives hope to many others who have battled away for so many years looking to find a way to take their game to another level.
It is true that Bryant’s career has been plagued to a large extent by injury more especially to his elbow but after nearly twenty years as a professional golfer it is fair to call him a late bloomer.
He led from the get-go this week after his opening round of 62 blew away the quality line-up and he was never really headed. Goosen, who was paired with Bryant in the final group today, was his closest challenger, albeit three behind, heading into the final round today. It soon became obvious that Bryant was there to stay as he opened with two consecutive birdies and when he added another at the fourth it was pretty much a case of who would be second. He did give his closest pursuer, Tiger Woods, a brief ray of hope with consecutive bogeys at the 5th and 6th but he regrouped and by the 12th he was four ahead of Woods and on cruise control.
If Woods had any hope of applying late pressure to Bryant it was lost at the par four 16th when he drove it right and into a hazard and eventually took double bogey. He struggled to the line and finished six shots behind.
In third place two further back was Scott Verplank, with Vijay Singh, Retief Goosen and Davis Love III sharing fourth, two shots behind Verplank.
Australians Adam Scott and Stuart Appleby shared 7th place at six under with Scott fighting back from a slow start to the event.
Bryant will move inside the top ten on the USPGA Tour money list and will jump many spots from his current 44th in the world ranking. When you consider that he was at 132 in the world at the start of the year, he has been one of the great movers in the world in 2005.
