Jimmy Walker Wins PGA After Wild Finish
First off let’s start with what’s not boring about Jimmy Walker. What’s not boring about Jimmy Walker is his love for space, his awesome dog Divot, and Mrs. Walker:
So yes, Jimmy Walker just won the PGA Championship, his first major and 6th Tour win. He famously played 187 events before winning, then took down 3 of the first 8 to begin 2014. He’s been very good ever since. He clearly wasn’t the favorite this week, but he’s an accomplished dude with world class talent. Unfortunately he’s just pretty bland, which is bad for golf spectating but good for winning golf tournaments. Tuning into major championship golf is like tuning into NASCAR — you watch for the crashes. For the pileups. You watch for van de Velde at Carnoustie, for Phil at Winged Foot, for Spieth at Amen Corner. We want to see nerves wreaking havoc as guys battle it out for life-changing accomplishments. We want either that or we want magic, like Tiger running and pointing at his putts or Larry Mize chipping in to rip Greg Norman’s heart out. Sadly we got neither.
Jimmy won wire-to-wire, the first to do so at the PGA since Phil in 2005. He did so about as Jimmy Walker-ey as possible, as his front-nine scorecard shows:
Zero birds. All pars. Classic Jimmy, but then we made the turn and things heated up. He canned this bunker shot on 10:
That sound tho >>> https://t.co/BGfXecuJLS
— PGA.COM (@PGAcom) July 31, 2016
Then dropped this 30-footer on 11:
Jimmy Walker: back-to-back birdies
He extends his lead to two shots at the #PGAChamp https://t.co/BpzFT0WpH8— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) July 31, 2016
And he seemed pretty comfortable from there. Matsuyama putted about as well as Rory McIlroy. Day couldn’t hit the ball closer than 50 feet. Stenson ran out of gas. Brooks was everywhere:
Adventurous 5 for Brooks on 11. Huge bogey save. #PGAChampionship pic.twitter.com/gQXqJZtrhJ
— Sam Riggs (@RiggsBarstool) July 31, 2016
And then J-Day made a late charge. He went 2-iron/2-iron to 10 feet for eagle on 18. Just 2 back at the time, we all got excited…
Jason Day, take a bow. https://t.co/BKZqycYcen
— ? (@JOSHPlNTO) July 31, 2016
…for about 30 seconds. Then Jimmy lipped in a 10-footer for bird and, once again, the tourney was his. He hit 5 great shots on 18 and, even though he had a couple feet for the win, wrapped it up nicely. It’s fun to poke Jimmy for his spectacular boringness, but his brand of golf absolutely gets it done. Great dude. Great golf. He joins Dustin Johnson and Henrik Stenson as seasoned vets who this year finally got the major championship monkey off their backs. Now he can go buy $1.8 million worth of telescopes. All those hidden nebulas about to get exposed as shit by @jimmywalkerpga. Congrats Jimbo.