(PHOTO MARC SEROTA)
The unheralded South Korean Y. E. Yang became the first Asian-born player to win a men’s major golf championship. His final-round 70, two under par, put him eight under for the tournament and gave him a three-stroke victory over Woods (75) at Hazeltine National.
Yang, dressed head to toe in white — yes, even the belt and the shoes — took the lead from Woods, his playing partner, by holing out for an eagle on No. 14. Woods missed crucial putts all day and failed to make a charge over the final four holes.
The tournament turned at the par-4, 301-yard No. 14, when Yang holed out from the rough just right of the green to take the lead. He repeatedly pumped his right fist after the slowly rolling ball dropped into the cup.
Both players bogeyed the par-3 No. 17, so Yang took a one-shot lead to No. 18. Then Yang, using a 3-wood hybrid from about 206 yards, nearly hit the flagstick with his approach shot on the par-4. He made a 10-foot putt coming back for birdie, while Woods bogeyed.
A jubilant Yang lifted his golf bag over his head as if like it were the Wanamaker Trophy, which goes to the winner.
Woods, a four-time P.G.A. champion, was two strokes ahead when the day started. He had never lost a major when leading or tied for the lead after three rounds.
Before Yang’s stunning shot, he and Woods had been tied three times. Both were six under at the turn. Woods nudged one shot ahead with a birdie on No. 11, a 606-yard par-5 that he reached in two and two-putted from 30 feet.
But Woods gave the lead back on No. 12, a long par-4 that has been the toughest hole on the course all week. He drove into the left rough, sent his second shot through the green, and missed a 20-foot par-saving putt on the right. On the par-3 No. 13, Yang remained tied by getting out from a greenside bunker and holing a 10-foot putt.
For the second consecutive week, Harrington played himself out of contention with a disastrous hole in the final round. Trailing Woods by one shot Sunday, Harrington, the defending champion, dumped two balls into the water on the par-3 No. 8 for a quintuple-bogey 8. That dropped him from six under to one under.
Harrington skied his tee shot into the pond to the right of the green. After taking a one-stroke penalty, he pulled his next shot left of the green into the rough, nearly beaning his playing partner, Stenson. Then Harrington chipped through the green into the pond, incurring another penalty. Dropping another ball, it took him two tries to get onto the green, where he made a 6-footer.
No one else made a sustained run at the lead. The United States Open champion Lucas Glover reached six under before bogeys on Nos. 6, 8 and 9 took him out of it. Soren Kjeldsen, four under at the turn, fell off with two double-bogeys on the back nine. Westwood got to three under, three shots back, with a birdie on No. 14, but pulled no closer.
Through the first four holes, Woods lost one stroke to par while Yang gained one to tie him for the lead.
But Woods got up-and-down from a greenside bunker on No. 5, while Yang bogeyed after landing his second shot in the rough. That put Woods back in front, one stroke ahead of Yang and Harrington.
Yang had rolled in a 12-foot birdie putt on par-5 No. 3 to vault past Harrington and Glover into second place. Then Woods, who has not birdied a par-3 hole all week, three-putted from 35 feet for bogey on the par-3 No. 4, missing a 4-footer for par. He later bogeyed No. 8 after driving into a bunker.
Woods could not convert two early birdie chances. On No. 1 he read a left-to-right break on an 8-footer, but the gingerly struck ball never turned and slid by on the left. On the next hole, faced with an 18-footer, Woods read the left-to-right break perfectly, only to watch the ball roll over the right edge. Annoyed, Woods crouched and raised his putter over his head.
Like Yang, Glover made some early noise. On No. 3 he knocked his third shot to four feet for an easy birdie, then added another birdie on the par-4 No. 5 to temporarily tie Harrington at six under par. But Glover dropped back with a bogey on No. 6, a par-4. Harrington, who went head-to-head in a memorable duel with Woods last Sunday at the W.G.C.-Bridgestone Classic before a double bogey on No. 16, parred his first seven holes.
It rained some overnight, but the P.G.A. did not need its weather contingency plan. The first twosome of the final round was actually a onesome. Sean O’Hair went off on time Sunday morning at Hazeltine National, and blue skies and sunshine greeted the early groups as they played down the front nine.
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