Matt Holthe's Fleeting Thoughts

Tiger Woods won the Masters today by 1 shot. It was his first major title in 11 years, and the 15th of his career. He's now 3 behind the record of 18 set by Jack Nicklaus. One odd thing to point out - Jack won his 17th major in his 76th major played as a professional. Tiger has played 75 majors as a professional. Through 75 majors played as a professional, Jack had 16 victories, 15 2nd place finishes, and 40 top 3's. Tiger has 15 victories, 7 2nd place finishes, and 26 top 3's. That's the thing that always amazed me about Jack - he was always on the first page of the leader board it seems. Jack's peak went through major number 83. After that, he played in 73 more majors and had 1 win and 6 other top 10 finishes. But in majors 1 through 83 Jack had 17 wins, 18 seconds, 19 finishes from 3rd through 5th (54 top 5's) and 66 total top 10's. 80% of the time Jack was in the top 10 of a major. That is simply incredible.

Today is round three of the Masters. Coming into round three, there are 5 people tied for 1st place at -7. Each of those 5 players -- Italy's Francesco Molinari (2018 Open Championship), Australia's Jason Day (2015 PGA Championship) and Adam Scott (2013 Masters), South Africa's Louis Oosthuizen (2010 Open Championship) and American Brooks Koepka (2017 and '18 U.S. Open and 2018 PGA) -- has at least one major championship title. Five players with major titles have never shared the lead after any round in any major. In fact, it's the first time since the 2002 PGA Championship that any five players -- with or without a major title -- have shared the 36-hole lead at a major. If that's not enough, 2 of the 4 players one stroke behind in 6th place are Tiger Woods and Dustin Johnson, who have won major titles themselves. I'm looking forward to watching how all this unfolds this weekend.

A year after Virginia because the first #1 seed to lose to a #16 seed, theywon their first NCAA Championship. It was a matchup between teams who had never been to the championship game - Virginia against Texas Tech. The game went into overtime and Virginia won 85-77. The over/under on the game was 120 with these 2 defensive-minded teams, and they went way over that. The game was back and forth, although Virginia led for a majority of the game. I wasn't able to stay up for the whole game, which I guess ended somewhere around 10:45 PM my time. The last time the championship game when to overtime was when Kansas beat Memphis back in 2008.