84 Lumber Classic Round Four: Flat stick wins it for Curtis as his big rivals run away

You wonder why some players bothered to turn up Sunday. Rory Sabbatini four over for the day? J B Holmes five over? David Toms, Vijay Singh, Sean O’Hair two over? Even Steve Stricker was doing an Italian job.

Sure the drying course made scoring difficult. And the return to grounded balls caused considerable angst, with several players moaning to rules officials how muddy their balls still were (cue jokes about mud-wrestling). There’s certainly something odd when it’s safer to play into the rough than the fairway because the ball stays cleaner.

But that’s no excuse for the droopy performance by most top-ranked golfers. End of term blues I guess.

Thank goodness at least one ‘old hand’ still knew what to do. And Ben Curtis’s accuracy off the tee put the bombers to shame, although his electric putting was the killer. Imagine how Charles Howell must have felt, constantly fighting back into contention only to see Curtis drain that killer 50-foot putt on the 16th.

The failure of the “names” again killed off the anticipated laying bonanza. Only Ryan Moore briefly joined the Curtis-Howell betting party before deciding to take up swimming. Even so, things weren’t made easier by so little money floating around. Too many burned fingers in the HSBC matchplay maybe?

Last thing to say on the last 84 Lumber is to give credit where it’s due: Sporting Life’s Dave Tindall is a top golf tipster and was certainly on the money with his Curtis call. I doff my cap.