Long Beach State University Athletics
Goydos a Winner, Despite Loss
5/14/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
May 14, 2008
So how did Paul Goydos sleep Saturday night?
That's what NBC's Bob Costas asked before Goydos took a one-shot lead into the final round of The Players Championship, wondering how a journeyman pro ranked 169th in the world handled his nerves sitting on a 54-hole lead for the first time in his 16 years on the PGA Tour.
"On my back," Goydos answered with a straight face.
Costas also got nowhere when he asked Goydos why he buttoned his golf shirt all the way up to his neck in the 90-degree heat at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.
"Because I don't have any shoulders," Goydos said. "This is the way the shirt stays on."
If Goydos, a Dove Canyon resident, was nervous about playing in the final group of pro golf's richest event Sunday, he certainly wasn't going to divulge such inside information before heading to the first tee to compete for a $1,710,000 first-place check.
And let the record show Goydos, 43, never showed any signs of angst or anguish all afternoon. Smiling and joking with his caddie from start to finish, Goydos did not trail against the deepest field of the year, while continually battling swirling winds on arguably one of the most challenging courses in the world, until losing to Spaniard Sergio Garcia on the first hole of sudden death.
Wearing his Long Beach State "Dirtbag" baseball cap to remind the national TV audience of his roots, Goydos led by as many as three shots with six holes to play, fell into a three-way tie with Garcia and Jeff Quinney, but then regained the lead with a birdie on the par-5 16th.
After making a par on the diabolical, 128-yard, island-green 17th hole on the Stadium Course, Goydos needed only a par on the treacherous, 462-yard par-4 18th to pull off one of pro golf's biggest upsets.
He was in the deep right rough, waiting to hit his approach shot, when he watched Garcia roll in a 7-foot par putt on the 18th, so he knew a par would win outright and a bogey would force a playoff.
Goydos had 226 yards to the flagstick, with water lining the left side of the fairway all the way to the green, so he wisely played it safe and chose to rely on his short game to finish it off. He led the field in putting all weekend, so why not?
So Goydos laid up by punching an iron out of the thick rough, coming up 15 yards short of the putting surface, then hit his third-shot pitch 14 feet short of the cup.
His clinching putt missed inches to the right, forcing the sudden-death playoff, which began - and ended - on the par-3 17th.
Goydos, hitting first, hit the same pitching wedge he had on the 71st hole, but this time a gust of wind came up at the wrong time.
"The wind stood it up a little bit," Goydos said at his post-tournament news conference. "I thought I hit it good, but it flighted higher. The other one penetrated a little better in the wind. This one kind of floated on me, and the ball ended up sinking."
In a watery grave.
Needing only to hit the green and 2-putt to win, Garcia still hit a sensational wedge shot that trickled down the slope in the middle of the green and stopped 4 feet from the pin. He missed the short birdie putt, but it didn't matter after Goydos had failed to hole his third shot from the drop area.
A gracious Goydos congratulated Garcia on hitting a great shot and pointed out later that Garcia deserved to win because he had led the field in driving accuracy and greens-in-regulation and shot a 1-under 71 Sunday, compared to Goydos' 2-over 74.
Goydos might have lost the tournament, but his consolation prize was a second-place check of $1,026,000 - the biggest payday of his career, even more than his $936,000 winner's check from the 2007 Sony Open of Hawaii. As a result, he skyrocketed from 140th to 26th on the 2008 PGA Tour money list.
It's a safe bet he also gained a lot of fans over the weekend, showcasing his dry humor and refreshing honesty while in the media spotlight.
Jamie Mulligan, a PGA club professional and chief operating officer at Virginia Country Club in Long Beach, had mixed emotions after flying to Florida to watch Goydos over the weekend. He said he was crushed that Goydos fell short, but was ecstatic the world got acquainted with his longtime friend, dating to their years at Woodrow Wilson High in Long Beach.
"I loved the way TV captured his true spirit," Mulligan said from the Jacksonville airport Sunday night, waiting for his flight back to Southern California. "He's a classy, opinionated guy. Everyone who knows him also knows it wasn't an act. He played great all week, and he represented all of us so well. I'm so proud of him."
I'm sure Goydos slept well Sunday night, too. On his back.
