Mr. September Strikes Again at the Deutsche Bank Championship

Just as 5pm marks the start of happy hour on Friday, meltdown hour on the PGA Tour typically begins at 5pm on Sunday.  

Turn on your television anytime between 5-6pm on Sunday evening and you’re bound to see double bogeys, heads held in hands, clubs flying through the air and caddies walking around with stunned looks on their faces.

Ahh, the meltdown.  It’s brutally tough to watch, yet it’s so riveting that no one can seem to pick up the remote and change the channel.   

As the five o’clock hour approached this past Sunday, there was a log-jam atop the leaderboard at the Deutsche Bank Championship.

Most were expecting the leaderboard to collapse like a house of cards before the tournament finally fell into one lucky fella’s lap along with an oversized $1.3 million check.  

But, in an era when tournaments seem to be lost far more often than they’re won, the 2009 Deutsche Bank Championship was a refreshing change.

For the first time in a long time, some of the biggest names in the game fought like cats and dogs down the stretch and none of them lost the golf tournament—Steve Striker won it.

Geoff Ogilvy chipped in for birdie at the 17th and then went on to eagle the 18th to take the clubhouse lead at 14-under-par.

About 15 minutes later, Angel Cabrera pared the 18th to close out a round of 65, which included a 31 on the back-nine, and took over as the new clubhouse leader at 15-under-par.

Moments later, Cabrera had some company at 15-under-par when Dustin Johnson finished off a bogey-free round of 66.

Jason Dufner, who looked more like a pre-PGA Championship Tiger Woods than a 32-year-old journeyman on Sunday as he sunk one long par putt after another, calmly birdied the 18th hole to finish at 16-under-par and become the third new clubhouse leader in less than 30 minutes.

The only player that may have let an opportunity slip away on Sunday was Padraig Harrington, who missed an 10 foot eagle putt on the 18th that would have given him a share of the lead at 16-under-par.  But, Harrington also finished off his round with two consecutive birdies after recording a bogey at the 10th and a double bogey at the 12th.

Scott Verplank came charging up the leaderboard like an angry bull down as he birdied his last four consecutive holes and tied Dufner in the clubhouse at 16-under-par.

“I kind of sputtered around today for the first 10 or 12 holes, and you know, I don't know exactly what happened, but I kind of said, I've kind of wasted most of the day, so let's try to make some good swings, and then I made a couple putts, and all of a sudden I was right there,” Verplank said after his final round 67.

But, there was still one last change to be made to a leaderboard that could have been mistaken for a Las Vegas slot machine based on how quickly the names were spinning.

Stricker, who was playing with Retief Goosen in the final pairing of the day, approached the 17th needing to birdie one out of his last two holes to join Dufner and Verplank in a sudden death playoff.

Exactly one week ago at Liberty National, Stricker missed a seven foot par putt on the 72nd hole that would have forced a sudden death playoff with Heath Slocum; but on this day, he had other plans.

While Dufner and Verplank were warming on the range for a possible playoff, Stricker sunk a 14 foot birdie putt on the 17th and then got up and down for birdie on the 18th to finish at 17-under-par for the tournament and edge out Dufner and Verplank by a stroke.

"I'm just happy the way I hung in there, and when it came down to the end, I gave myself a lot of opportunities there those last three, four, five holes,"  Stricker said after his round at TPC Boston.  "Knowing that I needed to make a couple birdies coming in and actually doing it means a lot."

Stricker, who is currently ranked fourth in the World Golf Rankings, will likely move up to second this week when the latest rankings are released.

Stricker is also the third player in the past four weeks to take Tiger Woods down in one way or another.

Y.E. Yang become this generation’s Jack Fleck when he took down Tiger Woods at the PGA Championship less than a month ago.

Last week, Woods was unable to sink an eight footer on the 72nd hole that would have given him the clubhouse lead while 20 minutes later Heath Slocum came along and sunk a 21 foot putt to win The Barclays.

"I have never seen him miss one in a situation like that," Jim Nantz said of Tiger Woods during the CBS telecast.

This afternoon at TPC Boston, which is hosting the Deutsche Bank Championship, Steve Stricker became the third man in the past four weeks to take down Tiger Woods.

Although Woods’ name did briefly pop up on the leaderboard after he posted a 63 earlier in the day, Stricker wasn’t going head to head with Woods like Yang did at the PGA Championship or even like Slocum did at The Barclays.

But, with his win at the Deutsche Bank Championship, Stricker has knocked Woods out of the top spot in FedEx Cup points.

“We all know what he's about and how great a player [Woods] is, but this format adds a lot of excitement, you know, for a guy like myself or anybody else to kind of challenge him in this format,” Stricker said.   “And that's what we got. Whoever is going to win this, whether it be [Woods] or me or anybody else, I mean, you're going to have to play some pretty good golf for two more events, and it's going to lead to a lot of excitement for the fans, the media and the players alike.”

Woods may go on to win more majors and FedEx Cup titles than Stricker could ever dream of, yet no matter what Woods does throughout the remainder of his career, Steve Stricker will always be known as golf’s very first Mr. September.