South African Retief Goosen threw the US Open championship away yesterday - today he returned to Southern Hills and snatched it back with a convincing playoff victory over Mark Brooks.
Goosen shot a level par 70 while the 40-year-old Brooks struggled to a two-over 72.
But the 32-year-old Goosen had to survive a shaky start before he put the lock on his first Major title. He dumped his approach on the opening hole into the right hand bunker guarding the green but managed to get the ball up in down.
On the second he hit his drive so far right he nearly landed on the seventh fairway. Blocked out by the giant oak trees that line the fairways and forced to chip back to the second fairway, he still managed to scramble his way to a par.
On the third he was again forced to save par with an up and down from a greenside bunker but Brooks went one up when he birdied.
The shock of going one down seemed to pull Goosen together as he began setting up a series of birdie chances which he finally took on the par-three 165-yard sixth.
As the four-time European Tour winner was getting his game together, Brooks, the 1996 PGA Champion, saw his go south as he began spraying drives into the lethal Bermuda rough.
As he reached the turn he bogeyed the seventh, then the ninth when his drive nestled only two feet away from a tree while Goosen birdied the ninth to head for home with a three shot lead.
Goosen extended the lead to five on the short par-four 10th when Brooks took three to reach the green and then two-putted while the South African hammered home his birdie putt.
It was a killer blow for the Texan who simply had no answer to the fired up Goosen-who was clearly determined to make up for his self-destruction on Sunday when he three-putted from 11feet on the 72nd hole to force the playoff. Even a two shot swing at the 17th when Goosen bogeyed and Brooks birdied, could not affect the outcome. It was too little too late.
Tonight’svictory makes Goosen the third South African to win America's biggest golf prize. The legendary Gary Player won the championship in 1965 and Ernie Els took the title in 1994, when he won a three-man playoff, and 1997.
-PA