Steve Stricker Proves Experience Matters

Every Monday during the PGA Tour season, Monday Pin Placement will run as a wrap-up of the weekend's action. Basically, we'll focus on what you missed while you were out grinding on the putting green.

Stricker Uses Experience to Edge Others -- There were three golfers in the playoff at the Colonial on Sunday, but only one had hoisted a trophy on the PGA Tour. Steve Stricker, by all accounts, had struggled on Sunday. The man that relies on his putting to get it done on the golf course hit multiple lips on his way to the 17th hole after he came off a frustrating bogey on the par-3 16th.

A second shot from just over 150 yards on 17 was yanked a hair, and Stricker found himself over the green with a tricky little pitch out of some thick rough. It didn't matter for the 42-year-old. Pitch. Roll. Pin. Birdie. Reminiscent of Nick Watney's shot on the ninth hole at the WGC earlier this year, Stricker's birdie gave him a chance at a playoff.

Inexperience by the others got him in.

Winning on the PGA Tour is the toughest feat in sports. Unlike other sports that are played at such a high level, holding a lead means you have to battle everyone else in the field plus your stupid, never-resting brain. It is as much an internal battle as it one with the golf course, and Tim Clark showed that Sunday. Clark has now played in 184 PGA Tour events and finished in second place seven times. He has two third-place finishes. He's accumulated 35 top-10s. Colonial Country Club, of all the PGA Tour events, is placed just across University Drive from the Fort Worth Zoo, and this was Clark's best chance to toss that nasty monkey off his back. Standing on the 18th tee, Clark needed a par to win. His 12-footer for par went begging. On the first playoff hole, again on the 18th, Clark hit one of his finer shots of the tournament, resting five feet short of the cup. After Steve Marino and Stricker both couldn't convert their birdie tries, Clark had the putt right-handers dream of. Five feet, up the hill, right-to-left for the win. His putt didn't even catch the lip and from then on it seemed inevitable that this would not be the site of his first win.

Marino is another talented golfer searching for that first PGA Tour victory, and it seems that 2009 could be the year. Three top-10s including a t-7 at the Sony Open earlier this year and a t-5 at the Zurich Classic in New Orleans are evidence that Marino can and will break through. His loss wasn't so much pressure as it was centimeters. Numerous times on the back nine, Marino hit putts that looked perfect but just wouldn't take the break. On the first playoff hole, Marino again hit a brilliant putt that just rolled the lip.

Stricker never let himself get down on his putting, and it eventually paid off with his second shot on the second playoff hole. A brilliant short iron that peaked in the cup before sliding by a couple of feet, Stricker stroked the putt beautiful and claimed his fifth PGA Tour title.

Some golfers rely on their talent or power to guide them. Stricker, one of the nicer guys on tour, stood by what he had done in the past.

Another Texas Tap-In -- Texas A&M University has been known for a lot of things over the years, golf not being one of them.

That all changed when senior Bronson Burgoon hit the shot of his life at the NCAAs this weekend, wedging his ball on the 18th hole from 120 yards to just three inches en route to the Aggies' first ever NCAA golf title.

The story was a little personal to me because I used to tee it up with Burgoon in junior golf events. He was four years my junior, but the kid could flat out play and talk about him being the next big Texas golfer had already started to rumble.

Burgoon had lost the four previous holes in his match before the heroic shot on the 18th. It was the first time Texas A&M had won a championship in something since the softball team claimed their sport in 1987.