Marc Leishman takes pragmatic approach: win or go home
CARMEL, Ind. — Marc Leishman is battling long odds.
And a bad back.
The Australian was the final player to make the field for this week’s BMW Championship, the third leg of the FedExCup Playoffs. He earned the 70th and last spot Monday with a final-round 67 in the Deutsche Bank Championship at TPC Boston to advance by a mere nine points.
Now he has to finish at least third at Crooked Strick Golf Club to have a mathematical chance of advancing to the postseason finale at The Tour Championship by Coca-Cola in Atlanta in two weeks. He knows he has a puncher’s chance. He also knows it might have to be a haymaker.
“It's pretty much win or go home almost for me,” Leishman said Tuesday after a practice round. “There’s a good chance it will be my last tournament of the year, so I’ll try and make it a really good one. If it is a really good one, I'll get to Atlanta. If not, I can spend a month home with my kids.”
Well, he was up against it Monday at TPC Boston and he came through. Starting on the 10th he made six birdies without a bogey and was well inside the top-70. Then a double-bogey hiccup on his 17th hole had him thinking about packing his bags. But with a last-hole par, he made it through.
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“Obviously what I did yesterday was a lot of fun … for the most part,” he said. “… I was aware going up (the last hole) I thought I might have blown it and maybe needed a birdie, but I actually had about a 20-footer downhill and I was looking straight at a leaderboard and it popped up that I was projected inside. So I was able to lay that putt down and hope that nothing silly happened.”
Nothing silly happened and Leishman headed to the Hoosier State instead of home to Virginia. Upon arrival, he sought treatment for his ailing back. He called it an old injury that pops up from time to time with the most simple of movements like getting out of his car or just sitting.
He has two bulging discs and one herniated disc in his lower lumber spine. He said the back got better as the week played out in Boston.
“Back hasn't been great, but it's just an old injury that has popped up again at a convenient time as always. But we're on top of it,” he said. “It's certainly been a lot worse. It's just not as bad as it has been. So I got a trainer now that I'm working with and he's on top of it and we're treating it every day and it's slowly getting better. … Probably every golfer's got something wrong with their back. Just happened that mine flared up at a bad time in the playoffs, and hopefully we can manage it like we have been and I can roll a few more putts in and we can be talking about getting to Atlanta instead of my back.”
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