Capelle On Golf

If Retief Goosen had only parred the 18th.
If Henrik Stenson had only played the last three holes in one over or better instead of two over.
If Ian Poulter had only birdied the super easy playing 16th.
If Tiger had not made birdies on 16 and 17.

If only one of these events had not taken place, then Tiger Woods would not be paired with Alex Cejka in the final round. But they did, and he is. And so Cejka, despite his five shot lead, will play the most terrifying round of his golf Sunday on a windmill laden course with doubles, triples, and the dreaded others lurking on nearly every hole.

Still, Cejka has a chance. He is tied for first in driving accuracy at 83.3%, so if he keeps splitting fairways, that could put some pressure on Tiger, who has hit only 57.1%. For the tournament Cejka also holds the edge in GIR at 66.7% to Woods’ 63.0, but his lead was built on his 17 green masterpiece in round one. Yesterday he scrambled to a 72 while hitting only nine greens.

Cejka no doubt knows the Sean O’Hair story about how he carried a five shot lead over Woods going into the final round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational six weeks ago and lost to Tiger by a shot. Tiger has also steamrolled a long list of notables in the last pairing of big events including Mike Weir (1999 PGA) and Luke Donald (2006 PGA). So if he knows he’s expected to lose, he may loosen up a bit and win instead.

Cejka and Woods are not the only contenders going into the final round. Five players (Retief Goosen, Jonathon Byrd, Ben Crane, Henrik Stenson, and Ian Poulter) are tied with Tiger at -6 and another three trail this group by a shot. That makes eight players won’t have the added pressure of playing with Tiger.

So, even if Cejka melts down, we could still have a super competitive championship, and one that could be decided on the most famous par 3 in all of golf.