Singh is back with Bridgestone win
IN: News | US PGA | Bridgestone Invitational (2008) | Round Four | by Bruce Young | 04 Aug 2008
Despite a shaky putter over the final nine holes, Vijay Singh has held on to win the US$8 million Bridgestone Invitational by a one shot margin over Stuart Appleby and Lee Westwood. After a start to his final round that had threatened to blow the tournament apart, the contest became a lot closer than it had at one stage appeared.
Singh shared the lead heading into the final round with Westwood and Phil Mickelson and made the best of the early holes with four birdies in his first six holes and was two ahead of Mickelson and three ahead of Westwood at that point.
No sooner had Singh appeared to establish a winning break than he began to falter and by the turn he had just a one shot lead over Mickelson and three over Westwood. Westwood’s double bogey at the 7th appeared as if it might count him out of winning the event but he would bounce back in the middle of his round to be well in contention over the closing stages.
Also closing fast late in the event was Australian Stuart Appleby, who played the more difficult back nine in three under and still had a chance to draw level with Singh playing the last. His second shot finished 18 feet from the hole but his one last chance was missed and he settled for second – although a cheque for US$704,000 is a great consolation.
Mickelson joined Singh in the lead when he birdied the 11th and went ahead briefly before bogeys at three of his last four holes saw him slip to a share of 4th with Retief Goosen, who appears to be back in the sort of form we expect from him.
Singh has slipped from 10th to 15th in the world rankings this season but this victory, given the field assembled, will likely move him back inside the top ten. His return to form could not have come at a better time with the US PGA Championship coming up this week at Oakland Hills.
Peter Lonard has been indicating his satisfaction in the progress he has made with his game of late and this week confirmed as much. Lonard picked up four birdies in his first eight holes and was challenging for a shot at the title but he was unable to pick up any more birdies over the next ten holes. He did, however, finish in a share of 6th with his final round of 66, the best of the day, and earns US$278,000. Lonard heads to the PGA Championship with his game in good shape to better his previous major championship finish of 11th.
The next best of the Australasians was Robert Allenby 20th, Nick O’Hern 27th, Brendan Jones 36th, Richard Green and Aaron Baddeley 43rd, Adam Scott and Rod Pampling 56th, Scott Strange 63rd, Geoff Ogilvy, Brett Rumford 71st, Craig Parry 79th and New Zealander Mark Brown 80th.
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