The 2013 Players Championship is in the books, as Tiger Woods walked away with his second career victory at the prestigious event. Although only one could win, numerous golfers at this year's competition put on quite impressive showings.
Certain golfers posted four consecutive rounds of solid play, thus proving that they can hang with the best of the best. Others may have struggled early, but rebounded well enough to be in contention come the final round.
To be clear, not every golfer who finished toward the top of the leader board will earn recognition for his performance. The key here is that certain golfers took the world by surprise, while others simply did what we expected of them.
Woods picked up his second Players Championship victory and his first since 2001. To reach that plateau, he shot four consecutive rounds under par and finished two strokes ahead of the field en route to a victory.
Jason Day may not have been in contention from a statistical perspective, but he displayed something equally as important. That, of course, is the grit and resiliency necessary to recover from early woes.
Day opened the tournament well, sinking four birdies and no bogeys through his first 16 holes. Unfortunately, a bogey on 17 set the stage for a round that Day hopes to never duplicate.
Day posted two birdies, three bogeys and a double-bogey en route to his second-round 75, thus bringing his score right back down to even. In other words, everything that Day had worked to accomplish was suddenly gone.
Day shot a 71 in Round 3, pairing birdies and bogeys in order to push his score back to one-under par. During the fourth and final round, however, Day made his way into this article and back onto radars.
After landing a second-hole eagle, Day would sink three birdies to just one bogey en route to a fourth-round 68. In turn, he rediscovered the form that made him a contender at the 2013 Masters Tournament.
Day needed a statement performance after a lackluster RBC Heritage showing, and in the fourth round, he made his mark.
Prior to The Players Championship, David Lingmerth had missed five consecutive cuts and eight of his past 10. The 25-year-old Swede decided that competing with Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia for the title would be the best way to make a statement.
Lingmerth started hot, making birdie on the second hole he played and never looking back, shooting an opening-round 68. The following day, Lingmerth again shot four under and went bogey free until the 18th hole.
Lingmerth had four bogeys in Round 3, but responded with five birdies and an eagle on 16. Unfortunately, the previously alluded to trend continued, as the youngster posted yet another bogey on 18.
Lingmerth would bogey three holes from eight to 14, but he also birdied 12, 13 and 16. With a chance to tie Woods' score on 17, however, Lingmerth overshot what appeared to be a manageable birdie putt.
With that being said, Lingmerth broke out in a major way during this tournament, showing thick skin and a short-term memory. He responded to every gaffe by putting on a brilliant display, either sinking a birdie or an eagle en route to a second-place finish.
Since missing the cut at the 2013 Masters Tournament, Kevin Streelman has reeled off three consecutive top-10 finishes. At The Players Championship, Streelman took that consistency and turned it up a notch.
After shooting a respectable six-under par through three rounds, Streelman reeled off a final-round 67 to place his name into contention—a number that tied for the best score of the day.
Streelman was nearly flawless, sinking just one bogey during the fourth round and sinking six birdies to counter that gaffe. He made consecutive birdies on the seventh and eighth holes, as well as on the 16th and 17th.
At the end of the day, Streelman went from having a solid tournament to making $709,333 in prize money off of a second-place finish.
With his final-round performance, Streelman has set the stage for a breakout major tournament season. Not only has he placed in the top 10 in his past three tournaments, but this was his strongest performance of the season.
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