Zach Johnson beats Tiger Woods after silly ending at World Challenge: video

It’s the silly season for golf and it’s fitting we got a silly ending at the PGA Tour’s World Challenge event.

The finish of the PGA Tour’s World Challenge had a bit of everything this morning. Zach Johnson ending up beating Tiger Woods in a playoff but it was the way it happened this was unusual.

With nine holes to play at the banal, tree-lined Sherwood Country Club in California, Woods held a four shot lead on Johnson. There once was a time when this would have been enough to ensure one could turn off the TV and read about Tiger’s victory a few hours later. But not today.

Johnson birdied four of the next eight holes to tie Woods for the lead as they arrived at the 18th. Woods’ approach shot barely made the green-side bunker before Johnson shanked his approach into the water.

Johnson followed up his shank by holing out his pitch shot for par and forced Woods to make a wonderful up-and-down for par to take it to a playoff.

The playoff was only slightly less eventful, which saw Woods find the same spot in the green-side bunker but with a different result. This time Woods couldn’t get up-and-down, missing a par putt to hand Johnson the tournament.

Seeing Woods miss a putt to lose a golf tournament is such a foreign sight I had to watch this several times to make sure it was real.

It’s a silly event in the silly season. It was fitting we saw a silly finish.