Goosen at loss to explain fade
PINEHURST, N.C. -- Stewart Cink had no way of knowing. How could he? He had finished his assignment in yesterday's fourth round of the 105th US Open by midafternoon, the leaders had just started out, so Cink wasn't talking from a knowledge of current events; he was talking from personal experience.
''He never gets flustered," said Cink, when asked about Retief Goosen, the man who took a three-shot lead into the final round. ''His composure is up there with the best of them and he won't let it go south."
Cink said it and we nodded our heads. In Goosen, we believed, too.
How silly we all look because Goosen authored one of the greatest collapses in US Open history. Three shots ahead to start, Goosen double bogeyed the par-4 second, then bogeyed the third, and never did he get the wheels back on. So bad was it that the previously unflappable South African not only didn't become the sixth man to win a third US Open or the seventh to successfully defend his title, he didn't even come close.
When he rolled a birdie try just wide right at the par-4 18th, Goosen had completed a nightmarish walk of nearly five hours, one that ended with a birdieless 81. He had gone from first to joint 11th.
What were those words Cink had uttered hours earlier? ''That's part of his game plan -- to not let the course get the better of him."
Cink was wrong. We were wrong. And it was left to Goosen to explain why it had all happened.
In his quiet, unassuming way, he tried.
''From the second hole onward, I got on the wrong side of the golf course and I got bitten," said Goosen.
By the time he walked to the third tee, Goosen had fallen to level par, tied with Michael Campbell, his three-stroke cushion evaporated, and what's more, his nerves looked rattled. For the first time all week, he didn't birdie the par-5 fourth, then he bogeyed the next two holes. He was headed south -- and in a hurry.
Having hit three greens in regulation going out, Goosen hit just four coming home. And this from a guy who three days earlier had opened the tournament by hitting 16 of 18 greens to shoot 68.
Again, reporters asked what had happened. Again, Goosen tried to answer how he had gone from three ahead to finishing eight behind, a staggering swing of 11 shots.
''It's been a bad day. Unfortunately, those things can happen," he said. He paused, fielded another question, and searched slowly for yet another answer as to how he had fallen so far behind as he headed to the homeward holes.
''It's frustrating that I didn't really have half a chance coming up the last few holes. But, basically, the last seven holes I was trying to finish the round and get on. There was nothing to play for."
This was the type of meltdown that had been predicted at the 2001 US Open at Southern Hills. On that blistering hot Father's Day, Cink was paired with Goosen in the final group and knew the South African needed to only two-putt from 12 feet to wrap up the title. So Cink rushed to get out of the way, making a sloppy double bogey, and quickly regretted it. That's because Goosen missed the birdie putt. Then he missed the 2-foot putt for par, too. Had Cink made bogey, he would have been in a three-way playoff with Goosen and Mark Brooks, only what Cink took out of that day was an admiration for Goosen.
''He never lost his composure," said Cink, who knows that everybody was expecting Goosen to crash and burn the next day in the playoff. Instead, Goosen beat Brooks by two strokes.
''A lot of guys would have [collapsed]," said Cink. ''He didn't."
Not that year, anyway.
