We might have a new Tiger slayer after Lucas Bjerregaard took down Tiger Woods 1 up in the quarterfinals of the 2019 WGC-Dell Technologies Match play with an incredible eagle-birdie-par close down the stretch.
Bjerregaard, who beat major winners Justin Thomas and Henrik Stenson (and tied a match with another major winner, Keegan Bradley) en route to playing Woods on Saturday afternoon, coasted through the first nine holes in 1 under. He was down a hole at the turn, and then he poured it on.
The previously little-known 27-year-old from Denmark shot a 32 on the back nine (with a double bogey!) and won the 10th and 16th holes, which sandwiched a lost hole at No. 11. The win on 16 came on a nasty eagle putt from 29 feet. He went to the 17th tied up with maybe the best to ever do it in match play.
On that par-3 hole, Bjerregaard hit his tee shot to 13 feet as Woods put it 7 feet inside of that. Classic Tiger close, right? Wrong. Bjerregaard poured in his putt, which forced Tiger to make his just to keep the match all square. Woods delivered the match on the 18th hole with a missed 5-footer that he read going right but actually went left.
"He hit it well," Woods told Golf Channel. "He hit a lot of good shots today. These are not easy conditions out here. He was flighting it well. I think his natural ball flight is pretty flat. That's advantageous in these conditions."
The Dane finished first in the field in strokes gained from tee to green and obviously putted well enough (especially at the end) to pull the stunner over the No. 13-ranked player in the world in Woods.
"It's up there," Bjerregaard told Golf Channel. "That's for sure. We had a great match. It's a shame it had to end like this. It really didn't deserve that. Obviously I'm happy to come out on the winning side, but we had a great match.
Bjerregaard confirmed that he had never even met Woods -- much less played with him -- until today and that the entire experience was somewhat surreal.
"I really, really enjoyed playing with him today. I never played with him before so it was a cool experience for me. Not a lot of guys can say they beat him so it's up there.
"It's so different to what I've ever experienced before. I've played with some good golfers before. ... It was really cool to experience, and I thought it was really enjoyable."
In the other matches on Saturday, two ended early and one got salty. We'll talk about the salty one first. Sergio Garcia tried to tap in a putt he obviously would have been given by his competitor, Matt Kuchar, and he missed it. According to the rules, Garcia lost the hole, and he was hollering about it for the rest day to a shocked Kuchar. The whole thing was great theater, and of course it went to the final hole with Garcia 1 down. Kuchar won that one, too, to take the match 2 up.
The other two matches on the other side of the bracket were less eventful than these two as Francesco Molinari pasted Kevin Na 6 and 5, and Kevin Kisner beat Louis Oosthuizen 2 and 1. That sets up these semifinal matchups for Sunday.
Matt Kuchar vs. Lucas Bjerregaard
Kevin Kisner vs. Francesco Molinari
CBS Sports was with you the entire way Saturday updating this story with the latest scores, analysis and highlights from the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play.
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Thanks for stopping by.
https://www.cbssports.com/golf/news/2019-wgc-dell-technologies-match-play-live-coverage-golf-scores-bracket-tiger-woods-vs-lucas-bjerregaard/
2019-03-30 23:02:00Z
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