ESPN.com - Golf Online - PGA Championship 2000

By David Kraft
ESPN Golf Online
Monday, August 21

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Bob May knew he had missed an opportunity. You don't get many chances to put Tiger Woods behind the eight-ball -- especially late in a the final round of a major championship.

No. 15 at a glance
Average	4.238
Rank	2
Eagles	0
Birdies	15
Pars	39
Bogeys	20
D-Bogeys	5
Others	1

May had a chance at the 15th. A good chance. But he left Woods with a heartbeat, and he later regretted it.

The two leaders came to the 15th hole Sunday with May holding a one-shot lead in the PGA Championship. May, who hit laser-like irons to the greens throughout the final round, hit his approach shot to the 402-yard par-4 directly over the flag, leaving a 4-foot birdie putt.

Woods, meanwhile, hit his 8-iron into a swale left of the green. Faced with a downhill slope to the cup, he elected to putt the ball. It carried 15 feet to the right of the cup.

Woods, putting first, stepped up and made his putt for par. May, who had taken the lead from Woods four holes earlier, pulled his par putt to the left. It never had a chance.

Woods stayed alive.

"It was critical," May said later. His caddie, Steve Williams, agreed. "Stevie said, walking off the green, 'Ballgame is on now,' " Woods recalled.

Woods knew that if he missed the putt and May made his, Woods would be three shots down with three holes to play. "I knew if I would make mine, it would make his putt a little longer," Woods said. "I felt if I had missed it, he would make it. That's just kind of the way the flow of the round had been going.

"If I could somehow dig down deep enough to concentrate and control all my emotions and nerves and bury that putt, I just felt that it made his putt a little more interesting -- knowing the fact that now if he missed, we walk off all-square on the hole, where he thought he might walk off with a two-shot swing on the same hole."

Woods kept his end of the deal.

"I stepped up there and just buried it right in the middle of the hole," he said.

May failed to do his part.

"When I hit it, I thought, 'Oh, this is going to be a good putt,' " May said. "It just hung out there left. That was kind of surprising to me. I thought I hit a pretty good putt there."

Not good enough. Both took par at No. 16, and Woods evened the match at the 17th. He eventually won in a playoff.

May said he didn't overthink the putt on the 15th. In fact, he said he'd hit the same putt again.

"You can't get ahead of yourself out there," May said. "You've got to take what is at hand right then and there. You can't think that far ahead."

And sometimes, when the PGA Championship slips away, it isn't good to look behind, either.