Verizon Heritage round four: Weekley finally plays his cards right

It wouldn’t surprise me if there’s someone out there whose heart is still thumping from watching Ernie Els’s amazing second shot at the 18th edge closer and closer to the hole before lipping out. I’m thinking of the punter or punters who wagered £36 ($72) on Ernie at 1,000-1 when his cause looked dead and buried somewhere around the television tower on the 17th hole.

They were just a smidgin from at least a playoff and the possibility of a small fortune. Their hearts must already have been aflutter from seeing Boo Weekley sink his second chip in a row on the 18th to force Els’s near miracle shot in the first place. What a grand way to finish a golf tournament. And what a day for in-play punters. With so many in contention until almost the end - when Jerry Kelly presumably succumbed to the cold he’d been fighting all week and others got caught by the wind again - it was difficult NOT to clean up.

I’m so happy I’ve even decided I like Boo’s name after all, despite the constant “Booooing” that follows him round the park. What a character: he sounds as if he hardly knows what day of the week it is, and says the wind saved him from a drubbing Sunday because he’d been up all Saturday night playing cards. Yet he’s a highly talented golfer who has already come close twice this season. Wonder what Augusta’s going to make of him next year!

Weekley admits those final chip shots were lucky (at least he wasn’t claiming the hand of God). But it’s not luck that he is the only player in the field to shoot below 70 all week in those conditions.

I did think Ernie was going to snatch it until his disastrous 17th. He was well ticked off afterwards about Weekley’s chip shots, although he put a brave face on it. Them’s the breaks and Ernie knows he should have locked this one up long before.

He left his putter behind Monday, but it was Saturday’s round that really sank him. It’s a great bounce back from missing the cut at Augusta, but it still leaves everyone, including Ernie, asking if he still has what it takes to close the deal.