AT&T National round four: Choi writes his own history

Something’s not right. Either K J Choi is telling porkies or the world’s press have been repeating a myth.

The oft-repeated story goes that Choi earned his “Tank” nickname as an up-and-coming teenage professional weightlifter back in Korea. But that’s not how the Congressional winner now wants us to remember it. Nope. It was Ian Baker-Finch on television four years ago who described him as going along like a tank. “You could confirm it with him. But that’s what we know of.”

So is Korea’s finest golfer being economical with the truth to gloss over his humble beginnings? He says the nickname is “symbolic of how I’ve lived my life. … never looking back, just move forward just like a tank.” If you ask me the bit about never looking back gives a clue to who is rewriting history.

But there’s no doubt about the chapter in history he wrote on the greens and fairways of the Congressional. There might have been a small element of luck in the fantastic bunker shot on the 17th that sealed the deal, but not a whole lot. It was a superb way to cap a superlative four-day performance on such a challenging track.

It is the all-round nature of Choi’s success that stands out: 15th for distance off the tee, fifth for finding both fairways and greens, all rounded off by the hottest putter of the bunch bar, maybe, Rocco Mediate. So now Choi joins that semi-exalted rank of best golfers never to have won a major.

I bet there’ll be a bit of a rush to buy the Super Stroke oversized putting grip that had commentators twittering. Choi, who spotted it in a TV commercial, says it cuts wrist movement “and just makes the ball roll better". Mind you, as he admits, it is big and it is ugly.

But maybe not quite as ugly as Stuart Appleby’s round Sunday, which made a mockery of my expectations of a par round at worst. I wasn’t the only one left aghast as bogey followed bogey followed double bogey. Maybe he should try Choi’s grip, because his own highly unorthodox way of holding the putter let him down big time - 36 putts on the round. His confidence visibly drained away to the point where you were surprised when he didn’t drop a shot. He and Tom Watson, busy at the same time blowing his Senior Open chances with seven over on the back nine, should form a mutual commiseration society.

Sunday was a strange day all round as the Congressional gave and took away in equal measure. Steve Stricker was on fire until the turn and the back nine also did for a rampant Robert Allenby. Towards the end the leaders were leaking shots so much even the steady but unspectacular Jim Furyk looked in with a chance. And where did Pat Perez come from to snatch a ticket to Carnoustie?

A shame Tiger Woods couldn’t get going. I thought he might be inspired by seeing his sporting buddy Roger Federer dig deep to take a five-set cracker at Wimbledon, but Tiger’s putter clearly wasn’t watching the TV. Still, the glow on Tiger’s face as he handed Choi the trophy suggested a man very happy with how his very own tournament had gone.

So he should be. Maybe it was never going to fail given its location on July 4 week and the active support it got from the White House (then again maybe that’s a minus these days). But it was a clever move to get the military involved in the way they were, it had a great course, Washington’s cosmopolitan golfing fans gave it a solid vote of confidence, and Tiger played host immaculately, to the detriment I’m sure of concentration on his game.

The players were clearly thrilled by it too. “It felt like a mini-major,” declared Stricker. Not bad for something cobbled together in just 116 days.