Zach Johnson was the unlikely figure left standing at the end of the longest Open Championship, winning a three-man play-off at the end of a gruelling fifth day on the Old Course at St Andrews.
The 39-year-old claimed his second major championship title he won the 2007 Masters and the Claret Jug at the Home of Golf after a final round 66 won him a place in the play-off against 2010 Open champion Louis Oosthuizen and Australia’s Mark Leishman.
As often happens, the play-off was something of an anti-climax compared to the thrilling tension of the regulation play.
The Old Course, decried as obsolete and derided often this week as being an insufficient challenge, once again proved Bobby Jones’ old adage that it is “the most favourite meeting ground possible for an important match”.
It’s hard to imagine the suffocating tension of this Monday afternoon being repeated at any other venue. For much of the day it seemed that 10 or more players could possibly win, even at the end we were all furiously considering the possibility of a five-way play-off.
In the end it was just three, as Jordan Spieth and Jason Day came up just short of the 15-under aggregate of 273 with pars on the last. Johnson and Leishman delivered outstanding 66s to get into extra time – the American holing a 30 footer to get there on the 18th an hour before his adversaries while Oosthuizen had a 69, only regaining the share of the lead he had at the start of the round at the last with a pinpoint wedge to five feet.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ISPMYBi99pw%3Frel%3D0
Both Johnson and Leishman, on the other hand, had held the lead on their own for long spells during the fifth afternoon of the weather-affected championship, played largely in rain with proper St Andrews winds for once.
Johnson, three back at the start of the day, made it all up and grabbed a lead at the turn with an outward half of 31, only to lose the lead to Leishman with a bogey via a greenside bunker on 13.
Leishman even had a two-stroke advantage for a time as Johnson bogeyed the 17th, but the American’s superb birdie at the last and Leishman’s bogey at 16 from the middle of the fairway eventually had them tied at the end.
They were joined by Oosthuizen who had battled back from two key bogeys with his final birdie at the last.
In the playoff, Leishman three-putted the first and was never a factor thereafter, while Oosthuizen and Johnson both birdied the first hole with outside 10 feet.
Johnson made his decisive move with another approach to 15 feet at the second and he holed it for a three to take the lead as Oosthuizen two-putted from 20 feet, but the South African had chances at 17 and 18 to make up the gap.
He missed an eight foot par putt at the 17th when Johnson took bogey via the bank at the back of the green, and then Oosthuizen pushed a six foot birdie chance by the hole on the last after Johnson had missed from 10 feet, handing the undemonstrative American the Claret Jug.
It was low key finish to some of the most thrilling final round action, mostly focused on Jordan Spieth’s historic bid for the third leg of a potential Grand Slam
The 21-year-old was heroic but came up frustratingly only a shot light the Old Course’s traditional double whammy, the Road Hole and the Valley of Sin, got him in the end.
Day would however be just as heartbroken. He fought hard and didn’t drop a shot, but picked up only two birdies and none after the sixth.
His putt on the last for a piece of the play-off was excruciating; left short in the jaws, and the snake-bitten Australian will have to wait for his first major some more.
Others had their chances. Adam Scott birdied the 10th to go to six-under for the day and tied for the lead on 15-under the third time in the last four Opens that he had led or had a share in the final round.
Yet once again it unravelled alarmingly. He lost some momentum with three pars, then found a bunker with his approach at the long 14th and bogeyed it, following with a heinous short miss at 15, and three more strokes frittered away.
“I’ll be disappointed the way I played the last 5 holes for sure,” he said, with understatement. “I could have done a lot better than that.”
Padraig Harrington had the lead as well, with three birdies in the first five holes, But on the sixth, he carved his drive into a gorse bush, took six, and that was the end of his challenge.
Sergio Garcia was in touch until successive bogeys at the 12th and 13th, and never a factor after that. Paul Dunne, the young Irish amateur tied for the lead, initially recovered his poise after a 5-5 start but got stuck in the turmoil on the back nine and finished with a 78.