In an act rarely seen in any genre of professional sports, Tiger Woods admitted that he would have been beaten if his competitor had been fully-focused.

Here’s the scene:  The final round of the Bridegstone Invitational, Tiger and Padraig Harrington were in a neck-and-neck battle with Tiger trailing by a stroke as they enter the 16th hole.

At this time, Woods and Harrington, the last pairing in the field, were 17 minutes behind schedule.  This “forced” official John Paramor to place the duo on a stopwatch.

Harrington’s take:

“It’s an awkward situation. There are rules, and the players make the rules and we’ve got to apply them. If you’re put on the clock, you always want to be nicely in position so you’re not having to think too much. I got out of position with my tee shot, my second shot and my third short. I got out of position and just got myself out of the zone.”

“If you’re asking a player two or three groups ahead of the lead to play within a certain time frame, it’s unfair to give the leaders any leeway.”

Harrington and Woods battled long and hard for the first 69 holes in Akron, Ohio.

Even Woods believed that the stopwatch made Harrington rush his shots.  The results were a shot of the tee into some trees, a shot into a bunker and a flop shot that ended up in the drink.

From Tiger:

“He had to get in there quickly and hit it. That was a shot you don’t want to get in there quickly and hit. You want to take your time and figure out exactly what you want to do. And I think by rushing like he had to, it forced him to make a couple mistakes.”

“I think I hit a good shot that put a little heat him. But also, I think the worst he would have made would have been bogey.”

“Like I was telling him (Padraig) out there, ‘I’m sorry that John (Paramor) got in the way of a great battle,’ because it was such a great battle for 16 holes. And unfortunately, that happened.”

Now the 16th hole at Bridgestone is a story of its own.  It was dubbed “The Monster” by none other than the great Arnold Palmer, and it is a 5-par, 630-yard nightmare.  Harrington triple bogeyed this hole, which effectively ended his chance at taming Tiger.

In any scenario - given Tiger’s abundance of skill and execution under pressure – he almost certainly would have come out on top.  But leave it to Woods, being the rare athlete that he is, to be classy enough to give his competitor the utmost respect.

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