Thousands of Greensboro golf fans flocked to Sedgefield Country Club on Sunday, sensing a huge victory, sensing a comeback from a guy who hasn’t won in a while on the PGA Tour.
That’s exactly what they got but it wasn’t who they thought it might be.
They were pulling for Tiger Woods to take the Wyndham Championship, anticipating a smashing come-from-behind victory by the winner of 14 major championships.
What they got instead was a terrific final round performance by a 51-year-old former University of North Carolina golfer named Davis Love III.
It was even more unlikely considering Love bogeyed his first hole of the final round. After that he went on an unbelievable run: birdie-birdie-birdie-eagle-birdie and he’d finish his front nine with a four-under par 31. That got him to 15-under then he rolled off five straight pars before he made his second eagle of the round at the getable par five 15th. That got him to 17-under par and that’s how he finished.
Love was done an hour before the other contenders and he had to sweat it out as a bunch of lower-tier players tried to challenge.
Woods could have been the biggest threat but he was treading water and shot even par on the front. He was still in it but at 11, he suffered the disaster of all disasters. Woods pulled his second shot well left at the par four then stunned the crowd when he shanked his pitch shot. It ran clear over the green and if the third wasn’t bad enough, he chunked his fourth, moving it only a few yards. Three shots later he was in with a triple-bogey seven and all hopes of victory were gone and the energy was literally sucked out of the crowd following him. Woods made four late birdies after the pressure was gone and shot even-par 70 that earned him a tie for 10th, ending his 2015 season.
After that, the other contenders tried and failed.
Scott Brown threatened but three back-nine bogeys left him at 15-under and tied for third. Earlier in the day, Brown jumped into a tie for the lead when he made a hole-in-one with an eight-iron at the 162-yard third hole with Woods watching him.
Jason Gore looked like he was out of it after making bogeys at 13 and 14 but a 16-foot eagle putt at the 15th got him back in business. He was 16-under with three to go. But Gore simply couldn’t hit one close enough at any of the closing holes to make birdie. His last gasp came after a great drive at 18 left him with a seven-iron approach, but it came up 60 feet short.
Gore two-putted to finish solo second at 16-under and his consolation prize was a ticket into the FedEx Cup playoffs.
When his birdie bid missed, Love was embraced by several friends on the practice tee where he was warming up in event of a playoff.
“It is incredible. I’m just incredibly blessed,” said Love, who at 51-years, four months, became the third oldest player to win a PGA Tour event behind Sam Snead and Art Wall.
“I’ve had a lot of people who have helped me come back from two big surgeries,” he said.
It was Love’s 21st PGA Tour victory. It was his first win since 2008.
Back in his college days, Love used to give golf lessons to a Carolina basketball player named Michael Jordan.
On Sunday, in Greensboro, he gave a golf lesson to the rest of the Wyndham field.
