PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — To be blunt, those who did not believe Michael Thompson would preserve the precarious two-shot lead he carried into yesterday’s Honda Classic final round surely outnumbered those who believed he’d close it out and capture his first PGA Tour victory.
Thompson, after all, had been a wayward soul on the golf course to date this year, with three missed cuts and a tie for 78th in the only tournament in which he made the cut.
Thompson played the round of his life yesterday at PGA National, carding a 1-under 69 to win the tournament at 9-under by two shots over 2006 U.S. Open winner Geoff Ogilvy, who made a spirited late charge that fell short when his 67-foot eagle putt on 18 that would have tied him for the lead missed by inches.
That left Thompson, who stood in the fairway and watched Ogilvy finish, needing only par to secure his first PGA Tour victory — and he birdied it.
“This is everything,’’ Thompson said. “This is a childhood dream come true. I just can’t put it into words. The whole day was awesome. I just enjoyed the ride.’’
Thompson is a 27-year-old who hasn’t spent a lot of time in the heat of contention — save for his U.S. Open runner-up last year at Olympic Club. So, given the treachery of PGA National coupled with the swirling winds in which only five of 74 players broke par yesterday, many observers watched closely waiting for Thompson to slip up. Only he didn’t.
“The start of the year wasn’t great for me,’’ Thompson said. “I was having thoughts of, ‘I’m going to miss every cut this year. I’m not going to play great at all. I’m going to lose my card and then what?’ ’’
Given how difficult the course and conditions were, Thompson impressed his pursuers.
“There are a lot of golf courses on the PGA Tour that it might be easy to close out a golf tournament, but this is not one of them,’’ Ogilvy said. “This is probably one of the hardest. You don’t have to do much wrong to be making a bogey out there. As you saw by the evidence by the rest of the scores, it’s a very hard golf course and it seems to get progressively harder.’’
Oddly, Thompson, a University of Alabama alum, seems to excel on the more difficult courses — as evidenced by his runner-up finish at last year’s U.S. Open. He preserved his win with critical par saves on Nos. 10, 11 and 14 that he called “huge.’’
“I’ve never felt so good on the course while in contention than I did today,’’ Thompson said. “I just felt real calm, real smooth. “I was hitting the ball so well. It was just awesome. This week was magical. I just had a groove going and kept feeling it, kept believing.’’
Thompson said his “game plan’’ all week was to “just try to find it in the dirt’’ — his way of reminding himself to grind it out.
“I love the big events,’’ Thompson said. “Hopefully, this is just another step in my career. I’m on a long journey and I don’t know where it’s going to take me, but I’m here for the ride.’’
Following his third round on Saturday, when reminded of the list of accomplished players who were right behind him on the leaderboard, Thompson joked, “You definitely see the names. I would like to see them all up there … hopefully right behind me.’’
This win, he said, “really kind of solidifies in my mind that I’m one of the guys now, and that’s a special feeling.
“Everybody wants to see the marquee players, the guys who are exciting or wear the bright clothes and all that,’’ he said. “I’m not a flashy player. I’m not dramatic or anything like that. I just kind of plod along, make my pars, eliminate the big mistakes and make a few birdies here and there. If I keep doing that and I stick to that game plan, I’m going to have a great career.’’