Frys.com Open Round Four: Caddie's sweet nothings propel Matteson to victory

Thank goodness that didn’t go to a playoff. or we might still be waiting for a winner. An excruciatingly long day - it seemed everyone had caught Ben Crane’s disease - looked certain to be the undoing of Troy Matteson when he was hauled back from a three-shot lead to a four-way tie at -20. He admits he was feeling the effects of having to finish the previous round in the morning.

Seems it was that caddie brother of his, whispering sweet nothings in his ear about what a great player he was, that saved the day. Matteson said he was a bag of nerves down the back stretch, although you’d never have guessed it as he drained one key shot after another.

Despite the tame finish, Matteson’s midway stutter ensured a profitable day’s trading if you didn’t get greedy and lay him for the house when he tripped. It was certainly a huge temptation.

Crane would have cracked it if his putter hadn’t briefly deserted him coming up to the turn. Two bogeys knocked the stuffing out of a solid charge and he never quite got back into it.

Daniel Chopra again starred in his weekly soap entitled What Might Have Been, but this is his best finish since joining the Tour so there’s got to be a win somewhere down the line hasn’t there?

You could say the same about Charley Hoffman, who again came up short - quite literally at the 16th as his over-ambitious tilt at the pin ended in the drink. Matteson’s response, a safe shot to the back of the green, was an object lesson for Hoffman in course management.

Charley by all accounts thinks such a concept is for woosies. $568,000 - the difference between his and Matteson’s take-home pay this weekend - says he’s wrong.