On Golf: Yang passes Woods, wins PGA

CHASKA, Minn.

There are those who will characterize the 91st PGA Championship as the fitting end to a major season on the blink. They will lump in the surprise winner of the Wanamaker Trophy with the year’s other upset champions (Angel Cabrera, Lucas Glover and Stewart Cink) and label this the Slam season of the dog.

They will say Hazeltine’s bewildering result simply was the inevitable, absurd ending of the most ill-fated major season in history.

How else can anyone swallow the fact that Y.E. Yang, a player with just one PGA Tour victory (2009 Honda Classic) who had never made the cut at a major before, took down Tiger Woods, snapping his streak of 14 straight conversions from the 54-hole major pole.

Incredulity might be the prevailing sentiment, but so what?

This moment has been more than a decade in the making, and Yang’s virtual no-profile does nothing to diminish his epic accomplishment.

“I know Tiger is one of the greatest players in the history of the game,” Yang said through an interpreter after besting Woods by five strokes in the final round. “You have to respect him. I don’t think he had a bad game, but I am glad he had an off-day.”

Sure, Woods didn’t come up with his customary closing brilliance Sunday, stumbling to a closing 75 at blustery Hazeltine. That score was just one better than his worst in the final round of a major (2004 U.S. Open) and by far his worst effort as a front-runner.

“I did everything I needed to do today except get the ball in the hole,” Woods said after his bid for a 15th major title fell prey to a number of cup-grazing putts and 33 total whacks with the short stick. “I had a bad day on the greens at a bad time. That’s the way it goes.”

But if Woods opened the door with a poor putting day, Yang was the only player who stepped through it. He was the only man among the dozen players who began the day at 2 under or better to break par in the finale, matching the day’s low round with a closing 70 on the 7,674-yard, par-72 track.

Sure, the 37-year-old South Korean hit some squirrely shots to the right early, flirted foolishly with the water at the 16th and obviously felt the intense pressure of his first taste of contention at a major with an ugly, three-putt bogey at the 17th.

But Yang also struck Sunday’s two most memorable blows: He holed a chip from 50 yards at the 14th for an eagle to become the first player to unseat Woods atop the leader board all week.

And with Woods just one back and the pressure of an entire continent on his shoulders, he channeled a little Shaun Micheel (2003 PGA) on his approach to the 72nd hole. His heroic hybrid from 206 yards out from the first cut tracked over a tree, landed two feet beyond a green-guarding bunker and bounded within 10 feet of the cup to cement his victory.

“Was I intimidated [by Woods]?” Yang said of the situation on the 72nd hole. “I guess I was a little bit.”

Story Continues →