HUALALAI, Hawaii >> When David Toms and Tom Lehman fell asleep Saturday night they must have wondered, “Did I lose or did he win or did I win or did he lose?” Probably a little bit of both.
Tied at 17 under coming to the 18th green during Saturday’s final round of the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai, Toms’ birdie putt of 25 feet raced 7 feet by the hole setting up a difficult par putt coming back. Lehman then had a chance to win it outright with his 20-foot birdie try that he left within tap-in range for par, putting all the pressure on Toms.
He missed his par chance badly, giving Lehman his first win in the island chain after runner-up finishes here in 2011 and 2016, and two more runner-ups at the Sony Open in Hawaii in 2001 and at the United Airlines Hawaiian Open in 1995. Lehman conceded it was a difficult way to win.
“As a competitor, you don’t want to win that way, honestly you don’t,” Lehman said, who closed with a 7-under 65. “You love winning, I’m not going to give the trophy back, but you would rather make a putt than have somebody miss a putt. So, I felt bad for him because I thought he played extremely well.”
Toms certainly had his moments and chances to win this event going away, but he didn’t get it done en route to a final-round 70. Nerves nagged at him straight away with a bad drive at the first hole that led to a two-shot swing that cut his four-stroke lead in half. His bogey and Lehman’s birdie was the first indication this was going down to the final hole.
Lehman also managed two critical par saves at Nos. 2 and 8, something he equated to birdie putts because he couldn’t afford to give any shots to Toms. Lehman didn’t have a bogey over his final 43 holes, while Toms had one at the first and one at the last, a pair of bookend bogeys that ultimately did him in. He went bogey-free the first round and had one in the second at the 15th hole. He was the last golfer in the field not to have a square on his scorecard.
“I didn’t get off to a good start,” Toms said of his 5 at the opening hole. “Came back, was doing great. Hit a lot of great putts on the back nine that I didn’t make, and Tom played great. I mean, I told you yesterday standing right here somebody was going to play good today and I had to play really well. I shot, what, 16 under par for the tournament in some pretty tough wind. I felt I played solid.”
The finish here Saturday was reminiscent of what happened on Maui two weeks ago when Xander Schauffele tracked down Gary Woodland to win the Sentry Tournament of Champions by one stroke. Woodland closed with a 68, but Schauffele came from five shots back to win with a 62.
“If the guy leading plays a great round, you can’t win,” Lehman said. “But if he gives you some openings, you can win, but you can’t make mistakes. So I think there’s a real fine line between being aggressive and also being smart. There’s some holes out here that are difficult and you don’t want to give shots back. So if you can find a way not to make mistakes, then I think you give yourself a chance if the other guy does make a mistake. But if I make mistakes early in the round, I still lose, so it’s really all about being as mistake free as possible.”
Toms’ biggest errors might not have been the two bogeys at Nos. 1 and 18, but rather the missed eagle putt of 6 feet at the par-5 10th. Two beautiful shots had him right below the hole while Lehman made a mess of things, resulting in a ho-hum par at what was the easiest hole for the round.
But much like he did at 18, Toms yanked the putt just enough for him to hit the left side of the cup and then spin out to settle for birdie. Had he made that eagle putt, he goes up four shots with eight to play.
“Yeah it makes it a lot tougher,” Lehman agreed. “Yeah, at that stage of the game that was a big miss for him, for sure.”
Toms couldn’t believe it didn’t go in, asking his caddie, “Did the hole move?”
That might have been funny had Toms won the tournament. But in the grand scheme of things, it turned out to be one of the biggest misses of the round.
“Yeah, I don’t know how it didn’t go in,” Toms said. “I mean, it hit a lot of the hole. Almost went opposite of what I thought it was going to do. That’s all you can do.”
As it turned out, it was pretty much a match-play event. Defending champion Jerry Kelly (67) and three-time winner here Bernhard Langer (67) tied for third at 14 under, three shots off the winning pace. In the past three years, Toms has finished fourth, third and second. His last lead going into the final round that resulted in a win was at the Sony Open in Hawaii in 2006.