Memorial Tournament round four: Right numbers, wrong player

Two days ago I was right on the button in suggesting the possibility that someone seven shots off the pace at the halfway stage could go on to win. Trouble is it wasn’t Jim Furyk repeating his feat of 2002, but K J Choi. Oddly enough, like Furyk in 2002, Choi was still five shots behind after the third round.

That was a very tricky match to follow “in-play” Sunday: Choi ripping up the field to go ahead by two, but running out of holes and starting to falter, leaving himself with difficult par putts. You just had to think he would slip up and at least be forced into a playoff. It took some brave putting to keep him ahead and, I suspect, burn a few layers’ fingers in the process.

Judging by the forums some people managed to spot something in Choi’s 24th place at the Colonial the week before. But there was nothing there to suggest he would start hitting fairways like he did at Muirfield. He averaged 84% against just 66% the week before, and that, apart from that hot putter down the final stretch, was the clincher.

His accuracy off the tee was only beaten by Kenny Perry, whose third place would not have been such a surprise had I caught an interview he gave on Saturday night when he described how, having switched tutors, he was now striking the ball better even than before his knee surgery last year. In his previous seven outings he missed three cuts, withdrew from two and finished no higher than 58th in the others. That’s some instant turnaround.

The less said about Adam Scott and Sean O’Hair, however, the better. O’Hair continued to miss too many fairways and putted poorly, while Scott also came up woefully short with the flat stick. Maybe that nice Mr Choi could give them some lessons.