Choi is the new Players champion
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – South Korea’s K.J. Choi won the biggest tournament of his professional career as he beat David Toms in a one-hole playoff to become the 2011 Players champion. Both finished regulation at 13 under 275. Toms bogeyed the first extra hole, the 17th and Choi made his par putt for the win.It was the eighth win of Choi’s PGA Tour career and first since the 2008 Sony Open in Hawaii. It was his first playoff on tour.
Choi became the first Korean, first Asian-born player and seventh international winner of The Players in the last 10 years and the 12th overall in the 38-year history of the event. The playoff was the fourth consecutive tournament requiring extra holes on the PGA Tour this season.
Choi’s win was a continuation of good play as it marked his fourth straight top-10 finish – T6 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, T8 at the Masters Tournament and a T3 at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. He had contended in majors before, but never was able to close it out. On Sunday, that all changed.
Tied with Toms at 12 under with two to play, Choi birdied the 17th to take a one-stroke lead. Then Toms birdied 18 from 17 feet and put pressure on Choi to make from just inside of five feet. He did.
“When I started my day today, one thing that I said to myself that I told myself that I needed to do was not to get swept away by the cheers of the crowd, of the gallery, not to get swept away by the pressure, by how my other players were doing,” Choi said through interpreter Michael Yim.
“When David Toms made that putt on the 18th for birdie, it was as loud as something you'd hear at the Masters, someone holing an important putt at the Masters.
“I felt very comfortable with the whole situation, with the whole environment throughout the day. There were going to be a lot of gallery that's going to be cheering for David, but I expected it, so it wasn't a big issue for me.”
Choi felt he had missed a lot of five-footers on the day, three or four he estimated, and it was because he didn’t read the lines correctly. So, faced with a similar five-footer for to force a playoff, he knew there was a chance he could miss it.
“But what I said to myself was let's just get the rhythm correct, and I prayed to the Lord to help me focus and to find my rhythm,” said Choi. “You know, if I were to putt well on the 17th at the playoff, there was a chance David would make that putt, too, and we'd go into 18. But I felt comfortable. I felt comfortable playing those two holes.”
Toms, despite not winning, was comfortable with his effort throughout the week.
“ I was very happy with the way I held up the last, well, 31 holes I played today, I guess,” Toms said. “You know, with the lead or around the lead the whole time, I mean, it's tough when you haven't been there in a while and when you haven't played this golf course well.
“So I just, you know, I just kept plugging along, plugging along and made a couple mistakes towards the end, but making that putt on 18 when I had to, you know, that just shows that I can still do it when I need to.
He wasn’t afraid to admit he got nervous down the stretch. He got ahead of himself at the par 5 16th. Choi, playing before Toms, laid up on his second shot and Toms decided to go for the green and try to get a two-shot lead with two to play. The mindset said go, but he didn’t pull off the shot, hit his approach into the water on the right of the green and ended up with a bogey-six.
“But 18, you know, to make birdie on 18 and hit a great tee shot and it ends up in the middle of a divot, to be able to kind of regroup and hit a shot and make a putt, I'm very, very happy with that,” he added. “And then, obviously, three-putting in the playoff wasn't what I'd like to do. But I thought I made the first one, and I hit a great tee shot. It was just a couple feet away from just going right down to the hole, and I just wasn't there on the putt.
“I was probably thinking ahead and thinking about the next hole, and I just got up there and missed it.”
He missed a chance at winning The Players and earning exempt status through until he becomes eligible for the Champions Tour. He knows he is close to winning again and thought it might even come at his favorite event of the year at next week’s Colonial in Fort Worth, Texas.
Toms’ game is rejuvenated. He is playing well again and contending and every time he gets himself in contention, you get the sense it could turn into his first win on tour since 2006.
But, the real reason he is getting back to form is because he is playing so much more recreational golf when he is home. He has a 13-year-old son, Carter, who has fallen in love with the game.
“ I mean, it's a lot of fun,” Toms said about his son’s interest in the game. “It's so funny, when I'm picking out my outfit for the next day, he's picking out his outfit for the next day. It's funny. Those young kids are looking up to the young guys out here on tour, and he follows it all the time. I mean, it's on his phone, it's on his computer, and he's watching The Golf Channel all the time.
“It's kind of neat to see, though. When I was really winning a lot of tournaments, he knew about golf and he was around some, but he didn't play it and wasn't into it. But now he is. It would have been nice to win today for him.
“He had one of his little friends there and they were following me every step of the way,” continued Toms. “Disappointed because of that, but he can take a lot of stuff away from this week. Watching his dad out there playing and seeing me under pressure, you know, it's neat. Because if I were to make a bogey or hit a bad shot, you look over and you see him in the crowd and just kind of put a smile on your face and puts it all into perspective.”
Some might say, as Tiger Woods has often been quoted, “Second is first loser.” Not Toms, he leaves a winner even though he was runner-up at The Players. He’s got the love and admiration of a son, and that is more important than any tournament he will ever win. What’s more, is he knows it.
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