Jim Furyk put it best when he said, “I’ve known it’s a cruel game for a long time”.
The veteran American golfer heads to the season’s final major with demons on the brain after handing the lucrative World Golf Championships Bridgestone Invitational to countryman Keegan Bradley on the 72nd hole.
Furyk, who led after each of the first three rounds, held on to top spot on the leaderboard until a double bogey on the final hole allowed Bradley to prevail by a shot.
Bradley heads to the PGA Championship in Kiawah Island as not only the defending champion, but also a last-start winner, as his final round six-under-par 64 lifted him to 13-under 267.
He is also a laydown misere for the US Ryder Cup team.
Playing in the final group with Furyk, Bradley made a clutch up and down on the last from a buried lie in a greenside bunker, holing a putt from almost 16 feet during his opponent’s disintegration.
“It just feels so great,” Bradley said.
“I was reading the putt (on 18) and I just kept telling myself that this is the exact moment that I live for, that you play golf for, that you grow up your whole life, and I’m living it.
“I didn’t think for a second I was going to miss it. It was unbelievable.”
Having pulled his tee shot on the last left into trees, Furyk actually received a lucky bounce back into the fairway. But he sent his approach long to the edge of a bunker, chunked the chip short of the green, left his next chip five-feet short and then, with a place in a playoff on the line, gunned a pushed putt past the hole.
A final-round 69 left him one stroke shy and tied second with Steve Stricker (64) at 268.
South African Louis Oosthuizen (69) took fourth at 269 with Justin Rose (67) and Rory McIlroy (68) sharing fifth five shots off the lead.
Having been tied for the lead in the US Open with three holes to play, only to fall away in San Francisco behind Webb Simpson, it has been a tough few months for Furyk.
“One thing I love about this sport is I have no one to blame but myself,” he said.
“I’ve known it’s a cruel game for a long time.
“I’ve lost some tournaments in some pretty poor fashions, but I don’t think I’ve let one ever slip nearly as bad as this one.
“This was my worst effort to finish off an event.”
Australia’s best chance John Senden started the day six shots back but ended it 10 off the pace after a poor two-over 72 dropped him to a tie for 16th at three-under 277.
The Queenslander’s lapse on the final day allowed Victorian Aaron Baddeley to take top Aussie honours with his four-under 66 moving him into a tie for eighth at 276.
Baddeley moved up 16 places to post a sneaky top-10 finish thanks to six birdies and just two bogeys on the final day.
Geoff Ogilvy (-1), Jason Day (+1), Adam Scott (+5), Marc Leishman (+5), Greg Chalmers (+7) and Robert Allenby (+12) head to Kiawah Island hoping for a better outcome.
