Yes, Tiger really can win the Masters

The U.S. Open's return to Winged Foot means revisiting one of the wildest finishes in the tournament's history. Phil Mickelson's failure on the final hole receives most of the attention, and for good reason. The U.S. Open is the only event that stands between him and the career Grand Slam. His six runners-up in this event also are a record; no one else has more than four. Winning at Winged Foot would have given Mickelson three consecutive major victories, as well. Winged Foot may have been his best chance to win his national championship. Playing in the final group, he arrived at 18 needing a par to win. Instead, his drive sailed off a hospitality tent and his recovery shot ricocheted off a tree and nearly bounced back to his feet. He made double-bogey instead. "I am such an idiot," Mickelson famously said afterward. "This one hurts more than any tournament because I had it won." His 6 at the last hole dropped him to 6 over par for the tournament, one shot behind winner Geoff Ogilvy. He wasn't the only one who lost the 2006 U.S. Open with bogey, or worse, on 18. PGATOUR.COM recently spoke to the others to illuminate all of the craziness that occurred on Winged Foot's closing hole: COLIN MONTGOMERIE Finish: T2, 286 (+6) Shots behind Ogilvy: 1 Score on 18: Double bogey What happened on 18: Flared his approach from the 18th fairway short and right of the green. Quotable: "I am convinced to this day that if I was able to hit that second shot in real time — I walk up to it and hit it the way that I do — I would have won." Mickelson wasn't the first player to lose the 2006 U.S. Open with a double-bogey on the final hole. Montgomerie did it first, and from the middle of the fairway. At least one fellow contender said it was Montgomerie's double, not Mickelson's, that was the most shocking because of where it came from. We're all accustomed to Mickelson scrambling from the trees. Mickelon's popularity - and his enduring quest for his first U.S. Open - has caused his mistake at Winged Foot to overshadow Montgomerie's. "That's the one that will forever haunt (Mickelson), but he's spent his life going for those shots. It's not like it was out of character," Padraig Harrington, who finished fifth at Winged Foot, told PGATOUR.COM. "What was out of character was Monty. Monty spent his life hitting the green with a 7-iron. "I was gob-smacked. Not so much with Phil. Phil is like that. I was gob-smacked with Monty." Montgomerie wrote in his autobiography that Winged Foot was "the major near-miss which can still wake me up in the middle of the night." Montgomerie, a World Golf Hall of Famer, had five runners-up in majors but never won one. What happened on the final hole was especially jarring after the good fortune he experienced one hole earlier. He made a 40-footer for birdie on that hole, a stroke of fortune that made him wonder if fate was finally shining upon him. "It went in and you think, ‘OK, is this it? Is this suddenly my time?'" Montgomerie recently told PGATOUR.COM. Johnny Miller could see Montgomerie's emotions from the broadcast booth. "I think he is thinking about crying right now," NBC's Johnny Miller said on the telecast. "I'm serious." Gary Koch concurred with Miller's observation, saying, "He looks very emotional, Johnny." Montgomerie walked to the 18th tee tied for the lead with Mickelson. Montgomerie split the fairway with his trademark high fade. He later called it his best drive in a pressure situation. He was left with just 172 yards to the hole. The pin was on the right-hand side of the green, a perfect spot for his left-to-right ball flight. Montgomerie had to wait several minutes to hit the shot, however, after Vijay Singh drove into the same hospitality area that Mickelson later bounced his tee shot off of. While Singh received his drop, Montgomerie estimated he had to wait 15 minutes before hitting his shot. "He's been waiting down there, Johnny, but he's been waiting nearly two decades for a major championship, so what's another minute or two," Dan Hicks said on the broadcast. It was the wait that Montgomerie felt hurt him. "The time, that was the problem with it," he told PGATOUR.COM. "It was the time I had to think. That's why I'm a quick player normally, because I'm convinced that the longer you have over a shot, the more doubt and the more negative thoughts spring up. And that's what happened and unfortunately I mishit it." Montgomerie changed from a 6-iron to a 7-iron right before hitting, a decision that Miller immediately questioned. "I'm surprised he just switched clubs, when you've had 10 minutes to figure it out," Miller said. Montgomerie thought adrenaline would give him added distance with the shorter club, but he caught it fat. "What kind of shot is that?" he said almost immediately after impact. The ball fell short and right of the green. He was below the green, chipping up to a putting surface that sloped away from him. His flop shot sailed well past the pin and he ran his par putt approximately 10 feet past the hole. He missed the comebacker, which would have gotten him into a playoff. "Colin Montgomerie will wonder if there will ever be another chance," Hicks said. There wasn't. Montgomerie, who was less than a week shy of his 43rd birthday, never finished better than T42 in another major. "I had a very bad flight home that night," Montgomerie wrote in his autobiography. "I remember sitting there in a daze, not knowing what to say or do. I wasn't crying. I had gone beyond that. I was incapable of any analysis. The same three words, ‘What just happened?', kept going through my head." JIM FURYK Finish: T2, 286 (+6) Shots behind Ogilvy: 1 Score on 18: Bogey What happened on 18: Hit approach into bunker and missed 6-foot par putt. Quotable: "It still pisses me off." - Furyk, on his missed putt on 18 Furyk doesn't remember seeing Mickelson's debacle on the 72nd hole. He was on his way out of town when it happened. The U.S. Open runners-up are included in the trophy ceremony but Furyk never thought he'd need to stick around for that after his bogey on the final hole. "I missed (the trophy ceremony) because I left," he said recently. "I didn't think I was going to be second. It never even dawned on me. I was in my car on the way out by the time that all shook out." Furyk, who'd won the U.S. Open three years earlier, three-putted the 15th from 30 feet for his first bogey of the back nine. He thought he needed a birdie at 18 to win the tournament for a second time. "What I remember was kind of hanging on all day and staying within distance. Just kind of hanging on, hanging on, hanging on," he said. "I just felt like I needed to get one more birdie on the way in. "I was always disappointed I bogeyed that last hole. I was pedal down, trying to make birdie as hard as I could." Furyk's tee shot landed in the fairway but bounced left into the second cut. He tugged his second shot into a bunker left of the green but blasted out to about 6 feet. Furyk and his longtime caddie, Mike "Fluff" Cowan, studied the putt intensely. Furyk backed off multiple times. "I backed off of it because I wasn't comfortable," Furyk told PGATOUR.COM. "I remember hitting a decent putt. I looked up and it burned the edge." The left-to-right putt lost steam and missed on the low side. "That was not that hard of a putt, except for the situation," Miller said on the telecast. "If they end up at plus 5, Furyk will think about that one for a while," Hicks added. Furyk still does. PADRAIG HARRINGTON Finish: 5th, 287 (+7) Shots behind Ogilvy: 2 Score on 18: Bogey What happened on 18: Three-putted from long distance for his third straight bogey. Quotable: "That could have defined my career as a massive choke. But thankfully others made worse and they got the blame." It's easy to forget the mess that Harrington made of the 18th hole. The final round overshadows all that precedes it, after all. Harrington finished his third round with a triple-bogey on 18 after topping a 5-wood out of the rough. The ball rolled just 20 yards. He pulled his next shot into a bunker, then three-putted. He started the final round four back of the leaders, Mickelson and little-known Kenneth Ferrie. Harrington played with Furyk in the fifth-to-last group. Harrington was bogey-free for his first 15 holes Sunday. He started the day with 11 straight pars before birdies at 12 and 14 got him into the mix. Playing so far ahead of the leaders, it was difficult to tell what he needed to post to have a chance. It turns out three pars would have done the trick. He closed with three straight bogeys instead. He missed the green at both 16 and 17, missing a 3-footer for par on the second-to-last hole. He hit his approach on 18 to the back-left corner of the green. Thinking he needed to make his birdie putt from across the green, he raced it past the hole and missed the comebacker. "I had three pars to win the U.S. Open. It's as simple as that," he said. "When I bogeyed 16, I thought I needed to make a birdie. As it turned out, I only needed to make two pars." He paused as he relived the crazy finish. "Wow. Crazy game," he added as he shook his head. Harrington's sports psychologist, Bob Rotella, approached his client after the round to check on his well-being. Harrington was upbeat despite the tough finish. "I was quite happy, to be honest, because it was the first time I knew I could win a major," he told PGATOUR.COM recently. "I know I messed up but I just didn't read the situation right. I didn't choke in the sense that I hit bad shots. I choked in the sense that I went for the wrong shot at the wrong time, which was situational awareness, which you only get from experience." Harrington won the following year's Open Championship, then won both The Open and PGA Championship in 2008.

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THE OVERVIEW By Cameron Morfit, PGATOUR.COM If you think of the stars of the game as actual stars, or planets, the orange-loving Fowler would be the sun — that universally revered energy source around which everything else revolves. The Golf Boys video? Yeah, Fowler was in that. The Spring Break trips with Smylie Kaufman, Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas? Yeah, Fowler was part of those, too. When Brooks Koepka came back to South Florida in between early-career adventures in Europe, he sharpened up with matches against Fowler. Ditto for Tiger Woods as he recuperated from back fusion surgery. TOP 30 PLAYERS TO WATCH IN 2018: We’ll countdown our list with one new player each day in December. Click here for the published players. MORE: Top 30 explanation and schedule Still, the planets have not always been in perfect harmony. Although Fowler, 28, got his fourth career win at The Honda Classic last season, he had nine other top-10s and wondered if he might have won more. He led the U.S. Open at Erin Hills after shooting a 7-under 65 in the first round but faded to a T5 finish. (In 32 major starts, he has seven top-five finishes, no wins.) Then came the unofficial Hero World Challenge in December, and Fowler’s course-record 61 in the final round. He started with seven straight birdies, shot 28 on the front nine, and won by four over Charley Hoffman. What on earth had gotten into Rickie? There was no telling, at least not until afterward. That’s when he said of pal Woods, “I think he sharpened me up a little bit.â€�   Uh, yeah. You could say that. It was the type of foot-on-the-gas performance that recalled Fowler’s victory at THE PLAYERS Championship in 2015, and fans were riveted. So were his fellow players. “To start out with seven in a row—it’s different if you play a few holes and get loosened up and then start birdieing,â€� said Fowler’s friend Bubba Watson. “But he came right out of the gate.â€� If that version of Fowler comes out of the gate in 2018, then no trophy is safe. BY THE NUMBERS How Rickie Fowler ranked in Strokes Gained statistics during his last full season on the PGA TOUR. FEDEXCUP Current 2017-18 position: 16th Playoff appearances: 8 TOUR Championship appearances: 4 Best result: 4th (2015) INSIGHTS FROM THE INSIDERS PGATOUR.COM’s Insiders offer their expert views on what to expect from Rickie Fowler in 2018. TOUR INSIDER by Ben Everill Time for a bold prediction of sorts. Rickie Fowler is about to bust out of the shadows of his friends and reach the potential he’s always shown. With just four PGA TOUR wins and multiple near-misses, the time has come for Fowler to finally cash in like he did at the Hero World Challenge. His journey reminds me heavily of Jason Day – near-misses in big events have steeled him and when he crosses the threshold, he will be a tornado to be reckoned with.  Click here to follow Ben on Twitter FANTASY INSIDER by Rob Bolton The day after the No. 2 in the all-around ranking in 2016-17 (Jon Rahm) is featured, we slide up to the 29-year-old who led the PGA TOUR in the category. When he finally captures his first major title, the rest of the world will see what we’ve known for years — that Fowler is simply a beast that his flare and personality accentuates, not distorts in this age of the short attention span. The fact that he has but four wins in eight full seasons on TOUR bumps him to second-round status in the stingiest of draft leagues, but he’s not even close to his career peak yet. The only upset is that he didn’t crack the top five in our series. Click here to follow Rob on Twitter EQUIPMENT INSIDER by Jonathan Wall Fowler’s dramatic come-from-behind win at the Hero World Challenge coincided with a move to Cobra’s new King F8+ woods. Cut down his driver shaft to 43.5 inches to gain additional accuracy. King Forged MB irons have tungsten slugs in each head to boost forgiveness and dial-in the center of gravity position. Scotty Cameron Newport 2 GSS putter was originally reserved for Tiger Woods. During a trip to Cameron’s studio, Fowler picked up the putter and had it built to his specifications.  Click here to follow Jonathan on Twitter STYLE INSIDER by Greg Monteforte Nobody moves the fashion needle quite like Rickie. He isn’t afraid to shake up the golf apparel world by infusing current streetwear trends into his looks. Besides the new Puma “Pâ€� hat he rocked during his win at the Hero World Challenge, expect him to sport electric blues, lemon yellows, and of course, his signature orange in 2018. Click here to follow Greg on Twitter

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