Lingmerth stands tall, falters at 18th

Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia created drama on and off the TPC Sawgrass course during the Players Championship throughout the weekend, but it was David Lingmerth (shown), a PGA Tour rookie who played at the University of Arkansas, who had the last shot at forcing a playoff with Woods on the 72nd hole at Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.

Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia created drama on and off the TPC Sawgrass course during the Players Championship throughout the weekend, but it was David Lingmerth (shown), a PGA Tour rookie who played at the University of Arkansas, who had the last shot at forcing a playoff with Woods on the 72nd hole at Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia created drama on and off the TPC Sawgrass course during the Players Championship throughout the weekend, but it was David Lingmerth, a PGA Tour rookie who played at the University of Arkansas, who had the last shot at forcing a playoff with Woods on the 72nd hole at Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.

Lingmerth missed a long birdie putt on the 18th hole that would have put him in a playoff. Instead, the putt went past the hole, leading to a three-putt bogey that dropped him into a three-way tie for second with Kevin Streelman and Jeff Maggert, two shots behind Woods.

“I was a little too aggressive with that putt,” Lingmerth told The Florida Times-Union. “I wanted to make it.”

Any notion that Lingmerth, a 25-year-old Swede, would bein position to force a playoff with the world’s No. 1 golfer on the 72nd hole of the PGA’s most lucrative event, would have been impossible to predict at the beginning of the week.

But Lingmerth, who led by two strokes when play was halted by darkness Saturday, started the final round in a three-way tie with Garcia and Woods after completing his third round with a bogey on the 18th hole.

A birdie on No. 1 took Lingmerth to 12 under, but he slipped to 10 under, four shots behind Woods at one point, with bogeys on the par-3 8thand the par-4 10th. Back-to back birdies on Nos. 12 and 13 put him back on top of the leaderboard, but he made bogey on 14.

A birdie on the par-5 16th left him one down to Woods with a chance to tie on the famed par-3 17th. Lingmerth, hitting after Garcia hit in the water, put his tee shot within 8 feet on the island green, but his putt for a chance to tie Woods at 13 under slid by and he settled for par.

On the 18th, Lingmerth drove through the fairway just into the right rough, then put his second shot about 60 feet above the hole.

He sailed his birdie putt 10 feet by the hole that would have tied Woods before missing his par putt that would have given him sole possession of second place.

“I felt I could have done a lot better,” Lingmerth told The Florida Times-Union. “That’s why that’s leaving a little sour taste right now. I was in it to win it.”

Lingmerth, who earned $709,333, was bidding to become the first PGA Tour rookie to win the event.

Lingmerth played on the Web.com tour in 2011 and 2012 after being named first team All-American for the Razorbacks in 2010. He finished runner-up after losing in a three-man playoff at the Humana Challenge in only his second career PGA Tour start in January.

He had missed five consecutive cuts heading into The Players Championship.

Sports, Pages 13 on 05/13/2013