The Streak ends: Woods falters at Buick
■ Tiger made a comeback
on the back nine, but a
three-putt bogey finished
off the victory string.
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Streak
ended in style.
Tiger Woods defied the odds once
again by erasing a seven-stroke lead
in just seven holes. Just as quickly, he
fell victim to his own mistakes and a
sudden revival by Phil Mickelson.
The longest PGA Tour winning
streak in 52 years stopped Sunday in
the Buick Invitational, wh6re
Mickelson won for the first time in 18
months and left Byron Nelson’s
record run of 11 straight victories as
the standard.
“At least I made it interesting for
Phil,” Woods said.
In a final round packed with as
much drama as a major champi
onship, Mickelson recovered from
two double bogeys with back-to-back
birdies that finally gave him a lead
too large even for Woods to over
come.
Mickelson closed with a 2-under
70 for a four-stroke victory over
Woods and Shigeki Maruyama, the
14th of his career. He finished at 18
under 270 and earned a career-high
$540,000.
“I have a lot of confidence after
this week,” Mickelson said. “I tackled
the best in the world, and I won.”
And so, the guy who started The
Streak finally ended it six months
later. ,
Mickelson was the first victim in
a streak that began with Woods’ one
stroke victory in the NEC Invitational
in August.
This time, Woods was seven
strokes down with 12 holes to play.
Six holes later, Woods pointed at the
cup as his ball fell to the bottom for a
5-foot birdie on the 13th hole that
gave him a share of the lead at 15
under.
Shocked at his sudden collapse on
a course where he grew up,
Mickelson finally answered. After
pushing his tee shot under a eucalyp
tus tree and having to lay up, he hit a
116-yard wedge to 2 feet for birdie to
regain the lead.
And then Woods finally blinked.
With only a 9-iron in his hand, he
was 25 feet right of his target, above
the hole on No. 14, blew his putt 6
feet by and missed it coming back —
a three-putt bogey, after taking only
15 putts on his first 13 holes.
Mickelson, watching from the
fairway as Woods made his first
bogey in 44 holes, dropped a wedge
into 6 feet for birdie and a three
stroke lead.
Woods bogeyed the next hole
from the bunker, and a smile crept
over his face.
“It means I came in second,”
Woods said, who joins Ben Hogan in
1948 with six-tournament winning
streaks.
And it means Nelson, who set his
remarkable record in 1945, can rest
easy — for now.
It was a heart-pumping end to a
streak that captured the imagination
of the entire tour. And it did nothing
to diminish the fact that Woods’ dom
inance of his generation may be
greater than any other player’s in golf
history.
“It’s disappointing I didn’t win,”
Woods said. “I just wasn’t hitting it
good enough to give myself a viable
chance down the stretch, and it final
ly caught up with me. To even be
under par... was kind of a miracle.
“Even though I put myself in a
good spot, I wasn’t really playing well
enough to win. To even be under par
... was kind of a miracle.”
Woods hit only 10 greens in regu
lation and missed eight fairways, but
he still scraped together a 68, and he
still gave Mickelson a major scare.
Maruyama had a 72 in his quest to
become the first Japanese player
since Isao Aoki in 1983 to win on the
PGA Tour.
Mickelson, who was tied for
134th in final-round scoring last year
and only two weeks ago blew a final
round lead in Phoenix with a 40,
showed the kind of courage that may
help him win his first major champi
onship down the road.
Don’t be surprised if Woods is
there waiting for him. While the
streak is over, Woods still has not fin
ished worse than seventh in a stroke
play tournament since April.
Woods has developed such a com
manding presence on tour that he was
asked on the eve of the final round
which players might make a run at
him — even though he was six shots
out of the lead.
And while Mickelson had control
on a course he calls home, there was
enough tension in the cool, damp air
to make the final round of the Buick
Invitational feel like a green jacket
would be slipped over the champion’s
shoulders at the end of the day.
A gallery that swelled to 35,000
— unheard of for this tournament —
desperately wanted to be witness to
another Woods comeback.
UI just wasn’t hitting it good enough
to give myself a viable chance down
the stretch, and it finally caught up
with me”
Tiger Woods
golfer
It looked early as though luck
would be on Woods’ side when his
drive headed left for the gallery,
struck the leg of an aluminum beach
chair and kicked out in the fairway.
From there, Woods laced an approach
that landed 7 feet left of the hole.
He made the putt and pumped his
fist pretty hard for such a short putt,
especially one so early in the round. It
was a clear sign that while Woods had
not been wrapped up in The Streak —
he had a high school pal on his bag
this week — the fire to win burns
every week.
Mickelson had plenty of fire, too,
and played like someone trying to
protect his home turf. He used to play
the front nine of Torrey Pines South
three times a week when he was in
high school, and he made it look easy.
After struggling to make three
pars, Mickelson smoked his driver
318 yards down the fourth fairway. A
10-foot birdie followed on the next
hole, and his 40-foot eagle putt on
No. 6 just dropped below the hole for
a tap-in birdie.
That put him at 19-under, still
seven strokes clear of Woods and four
ahead of a fading Maruyama.
No problem, right?
Mickelson was a 13-time winner
on the PGA Tour, not a 28-year-old
rookie like Matt Gogel, who bal
looned to a 40 on the back nine at
Pebble last week that gave Woods the
help he needed to win his sixth in a
row.
Just like that, however, the com
fortable margin turned into a throat
gripping finish.
From the seventh fairway,
Mickelson hit a wild approach that
landed just in front of a tree and
restricted his swing. Double bogey.
On the par-3 11th, he missed the
green and chunked his first chip so
badly it stayed in the rough. Double
bogey.
After two par saves, Woods hit his
approach into No. 12 to 3 feet for
birdie, then tied Mickelson for the
lead with another birdie on No. 13.
Fie wasn’t spectacular, but his pres
ence alone was a factor.
As Davis Love III said earlier in
the week, “Jack Nicklaus won a lot of
golf tournaments by having his name
up there, not by how he played com
ing down the stretch. Guys believe
sometimes more in other people’s
game than their own.”
Mickelson had every reason to
believe in Woods. But the guy who
has had problems closing out tourna
ments finally believed more in him
self.
Shaq, Duncan double as
MVPs in all-star contest
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Shaq
showed his power and glimpses of
finesse, too. And Tim Duncan was his
usual long-armed presence in the
middle with great touch, reaching
above the pack for inside baskets and
stuffs.
Who was more important for the
West in its 137-126 All-Star victory
over the East on Sunday? It was a
tossup, so much so that Shaquille
O’Neal and Duncan shared the MVP
award in the 49th game.
“Shaq’s a force to deal with night
in and night out,” Duncan said of his
co-winner.
“You don’t see many MVP guys
who can go inside and outside,”
O’Neal said, returning the praise.
It marked just the third time in
All-Star history there had been a co
MVP and first since 1993 when Utah
teammates Karl Malone and John
Stockton shared the award following
the game at Salt Lake City.
In 1959, Elgin Baylor of
Minneapolis and Bob Pettit of St.
Louis were co-winners.
O’Neal didn’t even play the
fourth quarter because he had a sore
shoulder. Before he left, he showed
the versatility and the brute strength
that on many nights makes him
unstoppable.
He dribbled coast-to-coast for a
finger roll layin in the first half, he
banked in short jumpers and he drove
down numerous dunks — one after
he got alone for a 360-degree sp^n
and-stuff that the public address
announcer summed up as “Shaq
slam.”
“I told Kobe (Bryant) if I got a
break, I’d do something nasty. I was
going to windmill but my shoulder
gave out, so I just did a little 360,”
O’Neal said.
And on his ball-handling exhibi
tion from one end to the other?
“I saw an opening. I just took a
couple of dribbles with long strides
and laid it up,” said the 7-foot-1,315
pound O’Neal.
U It was our size
against their
quickness. On
this day size
won”
Tim Duncan
All-Star game co-MVP
Duncan’s steady play that led the
Spurs to their first title last year was
evident all day as he hit 12-of-14
shots.
His most pronounced dunk came
in the final minutes after the West had
pulled away when he took a nifty
blind pass from Kevin Garnett and
drove the ball down with his left
hand, punctuating the victory.
“Kevin just made a great pass to
me. I went up and Zo (Alonzo
Mourning) was there and the ball just
went down for me,” Duncan said.
“This is the kind of game where
you have to get out and run and know
the ball is coming. You have to keep
your hands up.”
O’Neal, finished with 22 points
and nine rebounds. Duncan had 24
points and grabbed 14 rebounds,
seven on the offensive end.
“It was our size against their
quickness,” Duncan said. “On this
day size won.”
O’Neal said he enjoyed his sev
enth NBA All-Star game and not just
because he shared an MVP award.
“Watching Vince Carter win the
slam dunk contest. I’ve never seen
anybody do stuff like that,” O’Neal
said.
“Now that I’ve become a veteran,
I rested a little more and I took in
some of the festivities. When I was
younger, all I did was party, party,
party.”
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