OLYMPIA FIELDS, Ill. – In a do-or-go-home spot, Louis Oosthuizen birdied the 72nd hole in last week’s Northern Trust – in the dark, no less – to make it to the BMW Championship, the second of three FedEx Cup Playoffs events.
But that was a walk in a sun-splashed park compared to what he has to do to get to next week’s Tour Championship, the playoff finale.
At No. 70 in the standings and the last man into the BMW Championship, the 2010 Champion Golfer of the Year has to likely finish at least third if he’s to be one of 30 players heading to East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta for a crack at the FedEx Cup title and $15 million bonus.
“I just need to have a really good week,” Oosthuizen said Tuesday with a bit of a laugh after playing nine holes at Olympia Field Country Club.
Well, at the very least, he can call upon his last-hole heroics on Sunday.
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Oosthuizen, who is ranked No. 24 in the world, was having a miserable day in the final round and his chances to get to Atlanta looked bleak after three consecutive bogeys earlier on the back nine. But a birdie at 16 gave him an outside chance, a par on 17 improved his shot and then he busted a solid drive on the par-5 18th to get within reach getting into the BMW Championship.
And then a storm rolled in and delayed play for more than an hour.
“It was such an awful day for me the way I was playing. Everything I was trying was going backwards and making bogeys and making a lot of mistakes,” Oosthuizen said. “It was good to have that break really and sort of see what was going on. I wasn’t sure if 4 or 3 was needed to get through. Eventually got into caddie dining and they told me birdie will make it on the number.”
Trouble was, when he returned to the golf course, he could hardly see it as he pulled 3-iron from his golf bag for his second shot.
“I couldn’t really see the pin,” he said. “I knew where the pin was. It was in line with the TV tower. I think that made it really difficult seeing, as well. When the ball took off, I just looked around to see the response from everyone, and I looked over and (on-course analyst) Mark Immelman was walking with us and he gave me a thumbs up.
A birdie to qualify for next week.
No problem for @Louis57TM.
He claimed the last spot @BMWChamps on his last hole @TheNTGolf.#FedExCup pic.twitter.com/K2rYLDN4B9
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) August 24, 2020
“Only when I walked down and got to probably about 110 yards or so away from the green I could see my ball being about 30 feet from the hole.”
But reading a putt in the dark isn’t easy.
“Luckily I was using the books the whole week, so it gave me a good idea,” he said. “And I know the green. I knew the first (putt) was going to turn quite a bit. Obviously the speed was the main thing. I hit it a little lower than I wanted to, and it picked up a little speed, and the short one was a difficult one to trust myself to hit it just outside the hole. It was probably three-and-a-half feet or so, and you want to see the break to hit it outside the hole, but I just trusted it.”
And made it. And booked passage for Chicago.
And now has to finish top 3 to get to Atlanta.
“I worked hard to get through last week really, and I knew I had to play well,” said Oosthuizen, who last won at the 2018 South African Open. “I feel like I’m playing really good at the moment, just need to get four rounds together. I just really need a really good week to go to Atlanta.”
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