The top 10 major moments of 2012, including ecstasy, agony and absurdity.
The top 10 major moments of 2012, including ecstasy, agony and absurdity.
Furyk played the final round of the U.S. Open at Olympic without making a birdie, but he didn’t drop out of the lead until he snap-hooked his tee shot at the par-5 16th, opening the door for eventual winner Webb Simpson. (Getty Images)
If you were watching Bob Costas interview Webb Simpson after Simpson’s U.S. Open win, you might have thought you were hallucinating when you started hearing bird calls and saw a strange man rise up out of the bottom of the TV picture. Turns out it was an environmental activist, but USGA Executive Director Mike Davis quickly made him part of the environment, throwing him into a bunker. (Getty Images)
Usually when a caddie hugs a player, it’s in congratulations. But John Limanti offered I.K. Kim a sheltering arm in consolation after she lipped out a 1-foot putt that would have won the Kraft Nabisco Championship. Kim lost in a playoff to Sun Young Yoo. (Getty Images)
To have any chance of winning the U.S. Open, Simpson couldn’t afford to bogey the 18th hole. Yet that possibility loomed when his approach ended up in a hole in the greenside rough. The ball could have gone anywhere on his next shot, but it wound up just 3 feet from the cup, and he made his much-needed par. (Getty Images)
After failing to factor at the Masters, Woods shared the 36-hole lead in the U.S. Open and PGA Championship, and was third after 36 holes in the British Open. But all resulted in weekend fades and he remains major-less since the 2008 U.S. Open. (Getty Images)
Oosthuizen made only the fourth albatross in Masters history when he knocked a 210-yard 4-iron shot to the front of the green on the par-5 second hole and watched the ball roll almost 100 feet into the hole for a 2. (Getty Images)
Ernie Els won his fourth major when few thought he still had it in him. Els, whose putter had bedeviled him all year, sank a 15-footer for birdie at the last that turned out to be the winning stroke after leader Adam Scott bogeyed his final four holes. (Getty Images)
It was finally going to happen - Adam Scott was going to win a major. Leading by four shots with four holes to play, he couldn’t miss, could he? Turns out missing was all he could do, as he bogeyed all four holes to lose to Ernie Els. (Getty Images)
If anyone still thought McIlroy’s eight-shot win in last year’s U.S. Open was a fluke, McIlroy had an answer in the PGA Championship: ANOTHER eight-shot win. McIlroy became the youngest player since Seve Ballesteros to win two majors. (Getty Images)
Bubba Watson’s jaw-dropping, through-the-trees, half-a-football-field-hook approach to the 10th green on the first playoff hole set up his Masters victory over Louis Oosthuizen and taught us all the meaning of ‘Bubba Golf.’ (Getty Images)