Akshay Bhatia missed a putt that would have forced a playoff in Detroit. Getty Images Welcome back to the Monday Finish, where we’re just a couple hypnotherapy sessions [and a good golf game] away from winning on the PGA Tour. Let’s get to the news! But first, if you want this column in its original form, as an email newsletter, in your inbox every morning, subscribe for free HERE .
Winning is hard. Some weekends professional golf serves to remind of our own inadequacy. Drives flying 330 yards.
Towering long-irons stopping on a dime. Birdie after birdie after birdie. But not this weekend.
Sunday’s late-stage collapses began in Italy. When Tom McKibbin , who’d begun the final round in the middle of the pack, finished off a 65 at the Italian Open, he reached 10 under par — but DataGolf gave him just a 0.1 percent chance to win.
Sean Crocker and Jannik De Bruyn were tied with him, after all. Shubhankar Sharma was at 11 under. Antoine Rozner and Marcel Siem were each at 12 under.
And they each had more holes to play. But then golf happened, one shot after another. Crocker bogeyed 14 and wouldn’t make another birdie to finish at nine under.
De Bruyn made bogey at 18 to post nine under. Sharma made double at 14 and bogey at 15; he’d finish eight under. Rozner actually reached 13 under but played his final six holes in five over par.
And Siem made one bogey after another — 11, 14, 15 and 17 — to trail by one going to the last. Some three hours after he’d finished.
