BMW might be the Ultimate Driving Machine but on Sunday at Conway Farms, Marc Leishman was the Ultimate Grinding Machine.
Leishman was simply too tough, too determined for the rest of the would-be challengers at the BMW Championship, too tough to let the ghosts of that back nine 40 three Sundays ago in Boston haunt him.
He was also too tough for some pre-game harassment by the fat talking head of Johnny Miller, who caught up to Leishman as he headed for the range Sunday afternoon. Miller simply had to remind Leishman about the second-nine 40 at the TPC Boston. Politely, Leishman told Miller he’d do better this time.
Man, did he do better.
The Leish wasn’t letting anyone get in his way this go-round. This BMW Championship was his from the first hole on.
The Leish was tabbed a while back as “The Most Underrated Player In The World” by Jim “Bones” Mackay, now of the Golf Channel.
Well, it’s safe to say that “underrated” tag can go away now.
How about wire-to-wire against the best of fields?
Leish understands that he basically flies under the radar with all the young stars surrounding him and offered: “My good stuff is really good. I just need to show it more often.”
For the last four days, his “good stuff” was beyond really good. All he did was shoot his career round on day one (62), post his career 36-hole best on Friday (62-64) and his career 54-hole best on Saturday (62-64-68). On Sunday, he fought off all the contenders — Jason Day, Rickie Fowler and Justin Rose. Fought ’em off tooth and nail with a closing 67 and a record-tying 23-under winning score.
“There’s probably a few scars from Sunday in Boston,” Leishman said after taking a four-shot victory. “I was really, really determined not to let it happen again. I got it done!”
Man did he get it done.
He started with a five-shot lead and at one point, saw it shrink down to two.
Leish played with Rickie Fowler and held him at bay all day.
Justin Rose applied a ton of heat, he’s the one who got within two until he failed to birdie the par five 14th and the easiest hole on the course — the 274-yard par four 15th. Leishman took care of business with a timely birdie at 15 then another beauty at 16 to slam the door on Rose and the rest.
Just for the heck of it, he ran in a 20-footer for birdie at the 72nd hole. Game, set, match.
Leishman also locked up the No. 4 spot in the FedEx Cup point standings heading into East Lake. That means he controls his destiny there, as do the others in the top five.
When you look at his performance at Conway Farms, he’s got to be packing a lot of confidence as he heads for Atlanta.
And that flight below the radar just gained a lot of altitude.
Now he’s squarely on the radar.
That wire-to-wire performance sent a pretty strong message.
“He earned it, didn’t he?” admitted Johnny Miller, who didn’t rattle the big Aussie a bit with that Boston talk before the round.
Sorry Johnny, the big guy was in full grind mode on Sunday.
No ghosts, no mistakes, just a lot of good golf and grinding from the Ultimate Grinding Machine.
