ESPN.com - Golf Online - PGA Championship 2000 - Woods comes back to the field

By David Kraft
ESPN Golf Online
Saturday, August 19

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The 12th hole has been the hardest one at Valhalla Golf Club this week. And fittingly, in a 30-second span late Saturday afternoon, it changed the outlook of the PGA Championship.


	Tiger Woods dropped three shots over a four-hole stretch.

Tiger Woods, nearly flawless through the first 47 holes of the tournament, took a double-bogey. Scott Dunlap, who had pushed Woods but never caught him, made a relatively routine birdie.

And with that sudden three-shot swing, the PGA no longer resembles the U.S. Open and the British Open. The march to match Ben Hogan as the only man to win three professional majors in a single year wasn't exactly halted -- just stunted a little bit.

"Really, the 12th hole was the only thing that kind of derailed him there," said Dunlap. "That and a bad second shot at 15. He had two bad shots, but they cost him three (shots)."

Woods had methodically been picking up ground and seemed to be in the process of burying the field. Dunlap had matched him shot-for-shot through the eighth hole, when Dunlap missed a birdie chance that would have tied Woods.

But on the ninth, Woods hit a 12-foot birdie put to stretch his lead to two. And on the par-5 10th, he added another birdie while Dunlap settled for par.

The lead was then three. And the field which had been putting pressure on him -- including Davis Love III and Phil Mickelson -- was falling back.

On the 12th, Woods hit his drive into the left-hand rough. With an obscured shot at the green, he hooked an 8-iron into the long grass just short of the putting surface and pitched up to within 15 feet.

His putt for par -- the kind of putt he's been hitting during his remarkable majors run this year -- skidded a foot by the cup. Just prior, Woods -- followed by his usual massive gallery -- had backed off and reconsidered the putt.

"Hit a good putt, just misread it," Woods said. "(It was a) nice putt."

Woods marked, cleaned his ball -- and pushed the 2-foot bogey putt to the right.

"The next putt, I didn't hit very good," Woods said. "I stubbed it."

He tapped in for double-bogey.

"I hit a good third putt, though," he noted.

Dunlap, meanwhile, sunk a 10-foot birdie putt to even the match.

"At the time, I was pretty disappointed because I had missed what I thought were some really makeable birdie putts," Dunlap said. "I slipped back to three behind him and felt like ... (I) should have been right there. That double-bogey, birdie swing rectified all that in a hurry. I felt like I kind of got let off the hook."

Woods regained his lead a hole later when he got up-and-down from a bunker while Dunlap couldn't, but a bogey at the 15th evened the tournament again. By the time Woods finished with a birdie on the 18th, his once three-shot lead was one over Dunlap and Bob May, who shot his second consecutive 66.

"Coming off a double-bogey, that's fine," said Woods. "I had a lot of holes left. It's not the end of the world and I had plenty of holes left. And I have plenty of holes (Sunday). No sense in getting discouraged."

Not for Woods. But for the rest of the field, the swing at the 12th made all the difference.

"(There are) a lot of players out there, which is going to make it even more fun to go out there and have a challenge like that," Woods said. "I'm going to have a good time tomorrow."