GOLF US TOUR NEWSTHERE WILL be better days to come in the golfing life of Graeme Storm, though the former cake-factory-worker-turned-tour-pro will have taken some convincing of that yesterday after shooting a nine-under-par 63 to give himself a chance to win the $1.4-million winner's cheque at the WGC CA Championship.
"The best round of my career," the Englishman said after leaving the scorer's hut following the weather-delayed third round at Doral. Bold words indeed from the modest Storm but it was hard to disagree after a performance that vaulted him to 12 under par for the tournament and into the final grouping of the week alongside Vijay Singh, who also produced a third-round 63, and the leader Geoff Ogilvy, whose four-under 68 was good enough to open up a four-shot lead on the rest.
Most stunningly from Storm's perspective, as well as those who expected to see the most familiar name of all at the top of the leaderboard as final-round play began, his 63 was nine shots better than Tiger Woods's level-par 72. His score was equally astonishing, albeit for different reasons.
Indeed, the world number one was the only player inside the top 30 who failed to break par on a course rendered largely defenceless by rain that softened the greens and lowered the scoring. The onus was on putting and Woods failed the exam: time and again, he made the green in regulation only to watch in disbelief as his birdie effort failed to drop.
Woods began the final round on 11 under par, five shots adrift of Ogilvy and staring at his first tournament loss since last autumn, when he finished second to Phil Mickelson at the Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston. He has won every event in which he has competed since then, a streak that covers seven tournaments.
Maintaining that unblemished record was not beyond a man of his talent but Ogilvy, who spoke earlier in the week of "respecting . . . rather than being scared" of Woods, has this week looked every inch the golfer who won the 2006 US Open at Winged Foot.
Even if the Australian did falter there were others who stood between Woods and another win, not least the Fijian Singh and Retief Goosen, whose third-round 64 left him 12 under. Jim Furyk was another on 12 under and will have hoped to secure a victory, if only to restore his reputation as one of the best US players.
And then there was Storm. He has found himself in the spotlight on this side of the Atlantic once before; at last year's PGA Championship in Tulsa where he led after the first day. He faded then but as he headed to the tee for yesterday's final round he insisted he had learned from the experience.
"I had a lot of ups and downs that week; a lot of ups at the beginning and some downs at the end because I was disappointed where I finished," he said. "I felt as if I should have done a lot better. I played well on the first day. But the next few days everything seemed to go wrong. It was just one of those weeks.
"The heat was really difficult on the Saturday and the Sunday because it was so intense. But from the point of view of gaining experience, I learnt a lot from it.
"My career's been a bit like that. I seem to suffer major blows and then come back from it.
"Maybe I'm the type of player who needs to learn from mistakes. Like this week. I started off badly but I learnt from my mistakes and cut out the errors."
