South Africa's Retief Goosen
missed a two-foot par putt at the 72nd hole Sunday to fall back into a tie with
Mark Brooks and force an 18-hole playoff to decide the 101st U.S. Open at Southern
Hills.
The playoff, the 32nd in
U.S. Open history and the first since 1994, will begin Monday at 12 p.m. (et).
Brooks, who three-putted
the final green two groups ahead for a bogey that dropped him out of a share of
the lead with Goosen, was packed up and ready to leave the clubhouse when Goosen
charged his 15-foot birdie putt to clinch a two-shot victory two feet by the cup.
Then Goosen, who moments
earlier watched playing partner Stewart Cink miss an 18-inch putt for bogey, pushed
his short but pressure-packed par putt by the right edge of the cup. He managed
to pull himself together and sink a similarly short bogey putt on the way back
to finish regulation alongside Brooks at four-under-par 276.
The bizarre sequence of
events began when Cink needed to hole an 18-foot par putt at 18 to remain even
with Goosen at five-under par. But Cink's attempt slipped by the left edge, and
in what was perhaps a dejected state, he missed the mark on his not-quite two-foot
putt for bogey. Had he holed the putt, Cink would have been part of a three-way
shootout for the coveted trophy.
Instead, Cink's closing
double-bogey left him in third place at three-under 277.
"It was really tough to
dig in and concentrate on that second putt because I really didn't think it was
really all that important," said Cink, who has finished in the top-10 in three
of the last four U.S. Opens. "After the first one went by I though I probably
lost and then to see what happened after that with Retief, it was shocking to
me, not only because he just did that to get himself in the playoff, but also
because, hey, now I've missed a putt to lose out on the playoff."
All this on a day when
at first it seemed the strangest thing was the absence of Tiger Woods from the
top of the leaderboard.
Woods, who plundered Pebble
Beach a year ago in winning the first of four consecutive major championships,
failed to make a charge on Sunday and saw his incredible run come to an end. He
turned in his second straight 69 to finish tied for 12th at three-over-par 283,
snapping streaks of eight straight top-10s in majors and 40 consecutive events
under par.
"To be honest with you
I played as hard as I could," said Woods. "I tried on every shot, and there's
no regrets."
Goosen's monumental error
gave new life to the 40-year-old Brooks, who captured the 1996 PGA Championship
in a sudden-death playoff but hasn't won a tournament since.
Brooks, a shot back of
Goosen and Cink at the start of the day, seemed to be almost an afterthought when
he bogeyed the fifth to fall two shots off the pace.
But Brooks kept hitting
fairways (ranked 3rd this week) and hitting greens (ranked No. 1), biding his
time with pars until a birdie on the 11th pulled him into a four-way tie for the
lead with Goosen, Cink and Rocco Mediate at four-under.
When Goosen and Cink dialed
it up to go to five-under, Brooks responded by two-putting for birdie at the par-five
13th. The lead was his after Cink drove into a creek for bogey at 13 and Goosen
suffered his first three-putt of the championship at the 14th.
Goosen, who stoically battled
to hold on to a piece of the top spot all week, knocked his approach at the 15th
to the back fringe and rolled in a 12-footer to return to minus-five with Brooks.
Brooks' 200-yard approach
to 18 landed 40 feet left of the right-side pin placement. His first putt was
too hard and sped eight feet past the hole, and his par try stopped on the right
edge. The bogey gave Brooks an even-par 70 and dropped him to four-under.
Back at 17, Cink replaced
Brooks as co-leader after a brilliant wedge approach over the flag landed past
the pin before spinning back to two feet for birdie.
