Kenny Perry's inbox was flooded with emails from complete strangers, fellow PGA Tour players like Phil Mickelson and Greg Norman blew up his mobile and he even received a letter from former President George W. Bush. The well-wishers expressed their sympathies for Perry's Masters plight and thanks for the way he handled himself. He was greatful for the support, but it didn't help him sleep.
"I haven't slept much," Perry admitted prior to the start of the Zurich Classic. "I told my manager, I said, this morning the alarm went off and scared me. It's the first time I've actually gotten into some deep sleep. So that was nice. I've been kind of wrestling around, waking up each and every minute, kind of reliving the last few holes of The Masters.
Obviously The Masters is in a category of its own, but losing a golf tournament in the final few holes hurts, whether it's a major or an opposite-field event; it's is kind of like that old girlfriend you just can't get over. Volatilty down the stretch has been prevalent on the PGA Tour in 2009, so the insomnia isn't exclusive to Perry.
The line however between what constitutes a collapse, comeback and clinging to your lead for dear life has become blurred, and those words are being used quite frequently to describe final-day performances without really defining each one. I'll attempt to do that here.
Case: Kenny Perry, The Masters
Perry's grace and brutal honesty in the wake of his implosion down the stretch at Augusta National render it difficult to chastise the man for his misplays. But the unavoidable truth is that Perry, who was playing the best golf of his life, and making, 'conservatively aggressively' as he put it, attacking a golf course littered with land mines, capable of blowing up a round at any time, look easy for 70 holes, went bogey-bogey with one arm inside the Green Jacket.
Reluctant to classify his loss as a collapse or choke, Perry chose another route.
"I wouldn't consider it a choke," he said. "By far, that is the last thing that entered my mind. You know what, I think winning and losing is a lot about decision making. It's about the process you go through out there.
"I wouldn't consider it choking," he continued. "I was nervous, yes. But I was enjoying it. I enjoyed the moment. I enjoyed being in it. I was actually thriving on it more than I ever have in the past. So I haven't beaten myself up about this dea. I really haven't. I've enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to the majors coming up. I feel like I can be competitive in all of them. To me, it's given me a shot of confidence more than it has deterred me from getting after it more."
But logically you'd have to consider it a choke. The Mickelson/Woods front nine charge hit a wall hours before the tournament ended and eventual winner Angel Cabrera didn't make a remarkable shot to surge up the leaderboard, unless you consider a ball bounding off of a tree and kicking back into to the fairway remarkable. Lucky yes, but not the kind of shot that wins you a golf tournament. It only keeps you in the running and allows you to capitalize on an opponent's mistakes.
Verdict: Collapse
Ruling: A collapse is a final round performance, whether it be over 18 holes, final two or anything in between, by a player in unquestionable control of his own destiny that deviates from said players' performance over the first 54 holes. If Player A (Perry) holds his ground, Player B (Cabrera) doesn't win. A player doesn't necessarily have to be the leader when play starts on Sunday, only put himself in command of the tournament at some point in time. See Sean O'Hair, Arnold Palmer Invitational. Names often associated with this term include Greg Norman, Jean Van de Velde and Sergio Garcia.
This weekend Charles Howell III blistered TPC Louisiana early with six birdies on the front side, but bogeyed two of his final four holes and lost by a single shot. But Howell had doubled No. 17, one of the holes he lost a shot on during Sunday's round, on Friday and on Saturday he countered six birdies with four bogyes. He held the lead by two shots on Sunday, but his final round play didn't deviate from his performance throughout the event and it was never his tournament to lose. See Phil Mickelson, Masters.
Case: Jerry Kelly, Zurich Classic of New Orleans
Golf.com was quick to rule this one a comeback, going with the headline "Sunday Turnaround."
But Kelly lead the tournament going into the final round, and while he gave a few shots back on the front, that trend jived with his performance all week, and he even said so during his champions press conference.
"I knew what the back side had been doing to everybody all week," Kelly said. "And I had actually been playing the back side better. So I wasn't worried about not getting a hot start, because I had done better on teh back than the front. My caddie, Eric Heller, said the back's been yours all week, let's go take it, and he was right."
Kelly put his tee shot on No. 17 into good position for a two-putt par and took three shots to reach the green on the par-5 18th and finished with another two-putt par to claim his first PGA Tour win in 200 starts.
This case contains a little bit collapse, comeback and clinging to your lead, at least what you would perceive those to be. But Kelly had been making up ground on the back nine all week, so when he did so Sunday that shouldn't have come as a surprise. He held off the field by remaining solid and doing what he had done all week to win the golf tournament.
Verdict: Holding Your Ground
Ruling: Kelly extended his lead in the 3rd round and did what he had to do to get the win on Sunday, which puts him into the field for the 2010 Masters. Even though his advantage faded early as Howell poured in birdie after birdie, the tournament was Kelly's to win by day's end.
"Well, you can look at it like maybe it took the pressure off me," Kelly said. You know, it wasn't my tournament to lose anymore. It was my tournament to go get. And that's the mindset that I took after 10."
That might be true, but as he approached 17 and 18, the pressure was certainly on.
Holding Your Ground is holding a lead during the final round of an event and making the shots and score good enough to win. If you get beat by a birdie barrage or are the beneficiary of a late freefall, so be it. You didn't do anything spectacular, but the weight of the moment didn't affect your performance to where it deviated from the norm of what was expected. See Angel Cabrera, The Masters. Holding Your Ground is quite frequently associated with pars, lay-ups and lag putts.
Case: Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer Invitational
Woods trailed Sean O'Hair by five shots heading into Sunday's final round, but quickly made up ground, creating a dramatic comeback-collapse scenario that would play out the entire day.
The sheer size of his lead makes O'Hair's performance worthy of the collapse label. He would've won the event with a score of 1-over-par and would've at least forced a playoff with a score of 2-over-par, which would've been his worst total all week. At the very least you could expect him to match his worst total of the week.
On the other hand, Woods shot the low round of the day (67) and made a 25-foot birdie with the tournament on the line. His winning round has all the hallmarks of a comeback; big deficit, great performance, extraordinary shot (well would you expect anyone but Tiger to make that putt). He wouldn't have won without O'Hair's help, but he made all the necessary shots to claim victory.
Verdict: Comeback
Ruling: I realize choosing Tiger to define this term might be a tough sell because he often makes the extraordinary look pedestrian, but let's go for it anyway. A comeback is defined as winning an event when trailing by what the majority of golfers would consider a sizeable margin; most likely four or five shots. I'll rule out three shots because a birdie by one player and a bogey by another, which is reasonable, cuts a lead to one rather quickly. So I'll go with four because of the added layer of padding. Then the player obviously must make a shot to win the event; had O'Hair sunk his ball into the water on No. 18 at Bay Hill, and Woods two-putted for par the collapse wouldn't have had comeback as a dance partner. The putt clinched the comeback. See Jack Nicklaus, 1986 Masters.
This system is certainly open for debate, and I'll admit it can be ambigious and arbitrary in some instances. But I think my classification of each example and how one arrives at such a conclusion is certainly helpful when trying to define whether a golfer, choked, stormed back or held on during a pressure-laden Sunday situation.