Pettersson books US Open berth with Memorial win
BY Bruce Young | US PGA Tour | 2006 the Memorial Tournament | Wrap | 05 Jun 2006
Jack Nicklaus has made significant changes to the Muirfield Village layout in the past few years, perhaps to put the quality field that normally turns up to the Memorial Tournament to an even greater test than they had faced previously. Nobody denies him that right. It is, after all, a tournament with his handprints all over it and played on a golf course largely attributable to him.
The decision this year to not rake bunkers in the normal tournament fashion was another move to help identify the best players. All this seemed good on paper but to some extent the plan has backfired. Instead of the best players in the field rising to the top, the tournament’s last two winners have hardly fitted the mould of a typical Memorial winner.
Without casting doubt on the quality of Bart Bryant or Carl Pettersson as players, as they needed to be good just to make the field, the long tradition of major champions winning this event has gone out the window a little in the last couple of years. It is true that Bryant followed his win at the Memorial with a win later in the year at the Tour Championship, perhaps putting to bed any suggestion that his win at Muirfield Village was fluky but there is a certain amount of irony in the way things have evolved in the last couple of years.
That said, Petterrson’s win was particularly impressive given that he was in or near the lead for so much of this contest and when challenged today he was able to respond with a brilliant birdie at the 15th after he had missed the green in an almost impossible position left of the greenside bunker there.
Prior to that, Pettersson had holed a chip from just off the green at the 11th for birdie, then produced a great par save at the 13th after finding the right hand greenside bunker a long way from the left side flag. The 12 footer he holed there was important to keep his momentum going, as was the up and down he made to save par at the next after laying the sod over his pitch from 105 yards at the 14th.
While Pettersson was one hole behind and eyeing his second Tour victory, Adam Scott, who had made the turn in 32, birdied the 14th with a fine pitch to 4 feet and it would have seemed automatic that the long hitting Australian would pick up another at the reachable par five 15th. He did not however, as he was unable to get up and down from the right hand trap. When Pettersson birdied the 15th to move to 13 under it appeared only a disaster could stop him from claiming win number two.
Scott gave himself chances at the 16th and 17th holes but was unable to covert and, when he three putted for bogey at the last, not only was his challenge for the title gone but so too was a chance to share second place. That honour went to Brett Wetterich and Zach Johnson, who both birdied two holes late in their rounds to move ahead of Scott and Brandt Jobe the latter of whom all but holed his approach to the last to improve his payday considerably.
Pettersson was No. 51 in the world rankings last week and had missed getting into the world top 50 and earning an exemption into the US Open by just one-hundredth of a point. He had planned to go through Open qualifying after the Memorial but his win today was enough to get him to the US Open next week.
The next best of the Australians after Scott was 14th placed Craig Parry, who will be pleased with his significant improvement on what has been an ordinary season to date. A tip from Australian coach Steve Bann at the start of the week seemed to get the veteran back on track and this was an impressive performance.
Rod Pampling went backwards in a hurry with a final round of 75 to slip from 6th to 18th, Stuart Appleby was 28th, Geoff Ogilvy 31st, Peter Lonard 57th and Nathan Green 68th.
Many in this field will head up the road to the two courses being used in Ohio for final stage US Open qualifying before then moving on to next week’s tournament venue at the Westchester Country Club in Rye north of New York City.
Photo – WireImage
