Global Golf Post - May 10, 2010

At Last.
Lee Westwood
comes up
short.
Tim Clark
Cobra’s Hybrids Still Riding The Rails ( 5)
Rory’s Short Work Week ( 8)
Hewitt: Island Hole Guinea Pigs ( 13)

England’s Lee Westwood had finished
no worse than third in four of the last
eight majors when he arrived at The
Players Championship last week. And he
understood, better than most, that the
problem with knocking on the door so
persistently on golf’s big stages without
breaking through is the question that
necessarily gets asked.
But what about South Africa’s diminu-
tive Tim Clark?
He arrived at The Players with no
victories of any shape or size in 205
starts on the PGA Tour. And his only true
and meaningful recognition, prior to
Sunday, had come from the large num-
ber of fellow Tour players who stop and
watch him hit balls on the range. He is a
ball-striker’s ball-striker. His only swing
thought is hitting the ball in the middle of
the clubface.
Now, he is the 2010 Players cham-
pion thanks to an airtight-closing 67
that earned him $1.71 million U.S., and
the long overdue right to take a deep,
cleansing breath.
Questions, anyone?
Third-round leader Westwood fell
short again Sunday – this time with a
final-round 74. Tiger Woods didn’t even
make it to the finish line, withdrawing on
the seventh hole the last day with a sore
neck. Phil Mickelson, poised to take over
Woods’ spot atop the world ranking with
a victory, peeled off with too many early
Sunday bogeys.
Today, 5-foot- 7 Tim Clark, for the first
time in America, stands taller than the rest.