Key Highlights
- Ro-ry!” They desperately stuck their hands under the ropes for even the chance at a slap from a career Grand Slam winner.
- Outside the doors of the glorious Spanish-style clubhouse, as the back-nine drama played out, there was another crowd—this one shouting, “We want Scottie!
- We want Scottie!”L. A.
- loves both its stars and comeback stories, and many of those who showed up on this sun-splashed last Sunday in February arrived with the hope that they’d somehow see a movie that could remotely rival McIlroy’s triumph in the Masters last April.
- Coming from six shots back in the final round, for a first victory at Hogan’s Alley, in Tiger Woods’ Genesis Invitational would be quite the sequel. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe notion bordered on pure fantasy, and yet when Bridgeman and McIlroy walked off the 18th green to the cheers of an enormous crowd in Riviera’s natural amphitheater, it was Bridgeman heaving an enormous sigh of relief and McIlroy running his fingers through his graying hair, thinking about what might have been. McIlroy finally stirred a true roar from the gallery when his 30-foot putt on the 72nd hole barely tipped into the cup for birdie, putting him in a tie at 17 under with Kurt Kitayama, who charged with a 64. Bridgeman, who’d squandered six strokes from a seven-shot margin early in the round, had to only two-putt for par from 16 feet.
