Ranking the 8 Best Moments at Firestone

The Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone Country Club has seen its share of memorable moments. Most of them involve Tiger Woods shooting in the dark, grinding out playoffs and velcroing his shots to the greens.

Firestone Country Club played host to the World Series of Golf from 1962 to 1998 before it changed over to a World Golf Championship in 1999.

Tire magnate Harvey Firestone founded Firestone Country Club for his employees. That’s the perk of all perks. Since then, professional golfers have turned this into one of the greatest events on the calendar as the perfect table-setter for the year’s final major.

Before the PGA Tour tees it up at Whistling Straits, let’s look at some of the more memorable moments a the FCC.

8. Sergio Garcia's 'Diamond' in the Rough

Sergio Garcia made a spirited run at the 2014 Bridgestone Invitational, but he couldn’t keep pace with a dominant Rory McIlroy.

Garcia did, however, leave an impression at Firestone that year when an errant tee shot dislodged a diamond from a woman’s engagement ring.

CBS’ Nick Faldo said during the broadcast, "I think Sergio is going to have to dip into his back pocket. That looks like a 6-carater to me."

Leave it to CBS’ David Feherty to drop the cliche we all needed to hear, "This could be the most expensive tee shot of all time. A diamond in the rough."

Garcia showed some serious elegancia by helping the search party, giving her a golf ball and ensuring that she would be contacted by his people should she not find the rock.

She found it, but it was not before Garcia delivered a memorable moment at FCC.

7. Bubba Watson Blasts 424-Yard Drive

Bubba Watson’s 424-yard drive on the 667-yard par five was so Watson-ian. He’s routinely one of the longest drivers on the tour, and this blast may as well have broken the sound barrier.

He gave new meaning to distance, sending his ball down the center of this monster No. 16. It gave him a long 5-iron into the green, but unfortunately it led to a bogey.

“I hit 5-iron downwind, and I missed it. I knew when I hit it,” Watson said in Jason Sobel’s 2014 GolfChannel.com article.

He’ll always have that drive.

6. Jose Maria Olazabal Wins 1990 World Series of Golf by 12

Matt Slocum/Associated Press

Jose Maria Olazabal won by an amazing 12 strokes in 1990.

A year ago, Sergio Garcia tied a course-record 61 at Firestone, using an incredible 27 on the back nine, but the 61 was set (and subsequently tied by Tiger Woods twice) by Garcia’s countryman Jose Maria Olazabal in 1990.

Olazabal was 24 years old when he categorically crushed the Firestone field, winning the World Series of Golf by 12 strokes. He shot that 61 on Thursday and rode that record all the way to a smashing win.

Woods would tie that record in 2000 and 2013, each a year where he won the event. Garcia, despite tying the record, couldn’t sustain that momentum, ultimately losing to McIlroy.

He can always reflect to a time when he was but a boy, and Olazabal destroyed the competition.

5. Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods' Sunday Showdown

Tiger Woods was about to go on a tear in his career and it started to get rolling at Firestone. (The brief look at Woods and Phil Mickelson’s Sunday showdown starts at 1:59 in the above video.)

Mickelson rolled in a slick putt to put himself within two of Woods. Woods then took a disappointing five, and it looked like Mickelson may catch him and win the tournament.

A then-29-year-old Mickelson sent his approach into the tree branches, and Woods drained a 10-foot putt that effectively won the event.

It was one of the first times these two clashed, but it was Woods who almost got the best of Mickelson.

4. Tiger Woods' Shot in the Dark

The year 2000 had shaped up to be a special year for Tiger Woods. He had won the U.S. Open, the Open Championship and was about to win the PGA Championship. In between that was a shot in the dark.

At the 2000 NEC Invitational at Firestone, Woods could see the flag 168 yards away on No. 18, but when he made contact with the ball, it was anybody’s guess where it would land.

He stuck it, rolled in the putt and won in the dark.

“I'm a better player than I was last year," Woods said in an Associated Press story (h/t the Los Angeles Times). "And hopefully, I'll be better next year."

That shot symbolized the run he went on at the time: playing by feel, so in tune with his swing and his game that he didn’t even have to look where the ball was going to know where it would land.

3. Goodbye, World Series of Golf

Craig Jones/Getty Images

For 37 years, Firestone Country Club hosted what was known as the World Series of Golf. In 1998 that all came to an end. This pre-dated the WGC status, but it did have a world-class field that included Tiger Woods, Mark O’Meara, David Duval and two-time winner of the tournament Jose Maria Olazabal.

"The main thing," Olazabal said in the Augusta Chronicle, "is to play every week against the best."

This was a tournament won by Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tom Watson, just to name a few. Duval won the last World Series by shooting 11-under.

''When crunch time came, I hit the shots I had to hit, made the putts I needed to make,'' he said in the New York Times.

Duval held up the final World Series of Golf trophy and though the tournament has changed names, it still attracts the game’s best golfers year after year.

2. Lon Hinkle's Skip Shot

Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images

Lon Hinkle in 2004.

Lon Hinkle did what so many amateurs do: He hit in the water. The only difference was that he did it on purpose and skipped the ball across the water on No. 16.

The shot took place on Saturday (the second round since Friday's round was rained out) in 1979 and merely kept him in contention.

Dan Jenkins of Sports Illustrated wrote:

"

The outcome of a tournament is usually determined by a combination of good and bad things that happen to the principals over the last few holes. So it was at Firestone. The shot Hinkle pulled off on Saturday by hooding a six-iron and hitting a two-rippler across the water and up on the green to save a par—a dazzling, mysterious sight to the high handicapper, no doubt—should have been a good omen to him and a bad one for his rivals.

"

Sometimes we think that only the most recent golfers are inventive, but players have been crafting exotic and unorthodox shots for as long as the game has been around. Hinkle took it to a whole new level by actively attacking a trap and using it to his advantage.

1. Jim Furyk Keeps the Playoff Going

Seven holes, that’s how long it took Tiger Woods to finally outlast Jim Furyk.

It looked like it would be far shorter than that after the first playoff hole when Furyk’s chip from a greenside bunker caught the lip and rolled back down. From there, Furyk puffed his shot onto the green where his ball reached the cup, traveled 360 degrees around and dropped in. 

It was on.

"It was obviously the exciting part of the day for me," Furyk said in Jerry Potter’s 2001 USA Today story. "I collected my emotions and hit some good putts the next few holes."

In the end, it was Woods winning his third straight NEC Invitational in a year that saw him complete the “Tiger Slam.”

"I was able to hang in there a little bit longer than Jim," Woods said. "It was fun, because I was tested to the utmost."