Just rewards from England
British Open brings out the best in golf
Golf is rewarding, at whatever level you play. For the world's greatest players there is fame and fortune. For those whose skills are far less polished, the game provides a foundation for friendships and a universal language that brings us together when so many other aspects of our lives keep us divided.
This is not a thought that has just arrived. It seems to have hit home every July, whether enveloped by the pelting rain at Muirfield, the history of St. Andrews, the pulsating heat of Royal St. George's, or the fury of gale-like winds of Birkdale. The British Open confirms the greatness of the game like no other week during the year.
People wondered if this year's British Open would be interesting without Tiger Woods. Less than an hour into the competition, the answer was resounding.
It was barely 7:30 a.m. when Ernie Els made a deft pitch from the side of the second green, rolled in a 6-foot putt to save par, and a gentleman standing beneath an umbrella and in grass up to his shins applauded enthusiastically and said, "Well played, Ernie."
The comment led to a sight that was astounding. Both sides of the fairway at that second hole were lined with people and there was a ring of fans around the green. Dressed for the obstacles Mother Nature had dealt, the people had on rain suits, carried umbrellas, donned ski hats, wore gloves - but more impressively, they wore their passion for golf.
Pelting rain? Temperatures barely into the 50s? Steady, cold winds of up to 30 miles per hour?
So what? The golfers were going to "play on," so the fans would be there to watch. But more than that, they would be there to pay tribute to a challenge they appreciated. This was going to be a day - heck, it was going to be four days - when birdies would be rare, but true students of the game, they knew pars and even bogeys would be a testament to great skills.
Some Americans criticized the championship. Extreme weather tests patience and that's not a commodity with which a lot of our countrymen are blessed, so hardly was it a surprise when Jerry Kelly complained about the setup of the course and Pat Perez moaned it wasn't golf he just played. They shot 83 and 82, respectively, and 58-year-old Tom Watson played at the same time and shot 74. Then Perez had to mention how Kenny Perry was right to stay home.
Ouch.
Perry's refusal to take part in the world's grandest golf championship had given people cause to again cast American golfers as soft and spoiled, and now Kelly and Perez were adding to a perception that is hard to defend - but it can be done.
Start with Davis Love.
Playing in his 22d consecutive British Open, Love shares a passion for the championship, but accepts that some, like Perry, do not.
"He's a great guy. There's nothing bad in his heart," said Love. "He wasn't complaining about it. He just doesn't want to play.
"But the thing that bothers me are the guys who come over here, then they complain. Just don't come. If you're going to have a bad attitude on Thursday before you tee off because it's raining, then don't come, because you're just wasting your time. It's going to be bad, eventually, one way or another."
Some years, like 2003 and 2005 and 2006, the weather is so warm the ground is hard as concrete and the ball bounces everywhere, often into trouble.
Sometimes, like this year, it is windy and wet. Either way, links golf is the ultimate challenge, but only for those who like the ultimate challenge. If you're in search of another week of manicured courses, then Love is right to suggest you stay home.
But a lot of Americans treat the British Open with the utmost respect, far more than they are given credit for.
This year, for instance, Jay Williamson accepted a last-minute entry, took on the challenge, and acquitted himself nicely (T-39). Heath Slocum went over as an alternate not knowing whether he'd get in. The fact he did meant that Americans made up for more than a quarter of the players (23 of 83) who made the cut. That's a good showing and Love thinks he knows why.
"There are a lot of guys [who want to play here]. When I went to that qualifier in Detroit, there were a lot of tour players there and there were a lot of guys grinding it out, trying to make it," said Love. "There were five guys in the playoff for four spots. Four tour players made it. There are guys who are desperate to play."
To Love, it was disappointing to hear the complaints about the weather.
"Some guys can handle it and some guys can't. But you're not going to be comfortable like you are at home," Love said. "You're not going to have an easy round of golf every day.
"If it's warm, it's just as hard in another way - it's firm and fast and you get bad bounces and there's a lot of luck involved. Then it gets like this, and it's incredibly tough to control your ball and you just have to have the patience, no matter which way it goes. It's very rarely nice and comfortable."
True enough, though it's also the best golf of the year.
Nicklaus: Olympian effort
Count Jack Nicklaus among those who think it is time for golf to be included in the Olympics. And he's willing to get involved in the movement to make it happen."Wherever they need me, I'll be happy to help," said Nicklaus, who has relayed that message to the people pushing to include golf in 2016. That list includes Tim Finchem and George O'Grady, the commissioners of the pro golf tours in the United States and Europe, as well as USGA and Royal & Ancient chief executives David Fay and Peter Dawson. All have pointed out that if golf is an Olympic sport, then governments throughout the world will back it financially, ostensibly helping to grow the game.
Nicklaus made the point that golf may not need government assistance in the United States or some countries throughout Europe, but he's traveled far and wide and knows that doesn't hold true in other places.
"It would be a big thing in the world of golf to get financing in a lot of places where golf is not played," he said.
Nicklaus revealed that one of his newest points of interest, so far as building courses goes, is Russia. He said there's a plan to build 15 public golf courses in Moscow and officials there have indicated they'd love to do in golf what they've done in tennis in Russia - which is turn out the majority of the game's best young players.
Hurst climbing ladder; Wie falling off
Having missed the cut with rounds of 72-70 at last week's LPGA Tour stop in Illinois, Vicky Hurst will focus on the Futures Tour, which has set up shop this weekend for the USI Championship at Beaver Meadow GC in Concord, N.H.The 18-year-old Hurst easily tops the Futures Tour money list, her $62,901 total sitting $11,722 clear of her nearest challenger, and her four wins (in eight starts) ensured her a full-time spot on the LPGA Tour next season. It's a tribute to the commitment she has made to a time-honored route - Hurst has chosen to earn her keep by honing her game in the minor leagues.
That stands in stark contrast to Michelle Wie, whose focus continues to baffle. Just when it seems she was making progress in a comeback from a lengthy tailspin, she announces that she'll accept a berth into the PGA Tour's Reno-Tahoe Open next week. No matter the incentive, the message comes across as this: The women aren't offering enough of a challenge, so let's step it up a notch or two or six and play the men.
The sponsor's exemptions into the
What's especially unfortunate about her move to play against the men is it comes on the heels of another turn in her saga that could have generated positive public sentiment for the first time in quite a while. To be right in the thick of hunt after her third-round 67 at the LPGA State Farm Classic was a good sign; to be disqualified for failing to sign her second-round scorecard was a head-scratcher, not so much for how Wie did that as to how the LPGA Tour let it happen, then needed a day to catch up to it.
The LPGA Tour looked worse in this story, but unfortunately Wie didn't allow for public sentiment to build in her favor. Instead, she chose to move in a manner that makes people shake their heads, which is to say nothing for how it makes women less likely to embrace her - and that's the shame of it all.
Etc.
Shark sighting at PGA Championship?Greg Norman says he has until today to decide whether to accept an invitation to play in the final major of the year, the PGA Championship. Norman's third-place finish at the British Open at Royal Birkdale has given him a place in the field for the PGA at Oakland Hills, outside Detroit, Aug. 7-10. "The PGA have extended an invitation to the PGA Championship and I haven't confirmed or denied what I'm going to do yet," Norman said yesterday on the eve of the Senior British Open at Troon. "That's four weeks in a row and I already have something else on my schedule then."
Senior moments
Kirk Hanefeld and Peter Teravainen earned spots into the British Senior Open, which gets underway today at Troon. Hanefeld, who finished tied for 23d in last year's championship at Muirfield, got into the Troon field by shooting 77 in a qualifier at Glasgow Gailes, then surviving a playoff logjam - 12 players for four spots. It will be Hanefeld's third straight appearance in the championship; he was T-27 in 2006 at Turnberry. Teravainen, the pride of Duxbury who spent the majority of his professional career playing European tournaments, shot 74 in a qualifier at Western Gailes.
A cut above
If you had predicted before the year began that only Robert Karlsson would have top-10 finishes in the first three major championships, then put yourself down for a gold star. The Swede closed with a 69 at Royal Birkdale to vault from joint 48th into a share of seventh, so he's been the most consistent of those 17 players who've made the cut in the Masters, US Open, and British Open. Here's that list and how the players have done cumulatively against par: Padraig Harrington (10 over); Karlsson (13 over); Phil Mickelson (18 over); Trevor Immelman and Lee Westwood (20 over); Retief Goosen and Andres Romero (22 over); Jim Furyk, Adam Scott, Heath Slocum, and Mike Weir (24 over); Justin Leonard (25 over); Paul Casey (26 over); Stuart Appleby (27 over); Stephen Ames (28 over); Robert Allenby (29 over); and Todd Hamilton (31 over).
The wet Monty
As he put a recap on another disappointing British Open, Colin Montgomerie (298, T-58) didn't really use it as an excuse, but he pointed out his week had started in the worst of the weather early Thursday morning. "It was difficult to maintain one's position there," said Montgomerie, of the heavy rain, the cold, and the high winds. "That was a pity to start with, but that's the nature of this Open." What should be mentioned is that Harrington, the winner, also played Thursday in the worst of the weather and he appeared to "maintain" his position well enough. And so, too, did K.J. Choi, your 36-hole leader who finished joint 16th.
Carrying on
On the occasions when he does play, Norman can often get old friend Tony Navarro to caddie for him, assuming Scott isn't playing that week. But with Navarro committed to Scott in last week's British Open, Norman turned to a man well-traveled in PGA Tour caddie circles. Said Linn Strickler when asked how old he was: "58 well-worn years." Throughout his career, Strickler said he's caddied for five players and been on the bag for a dozen victories, the most special of which was Fred Couples's 1984 Players Championship. The longest stretch for Strickler was 14 years with Ben Crenshaw, though never in the Masters. The Crenshaw bag in Augusta is always reserved for Carl Jackson.
Four-wheel drive
Mark Calcavecchia intended to use his wife, Brenda, as his caddie in Round 1 of the British Open, but Thursday's miserable weather ditched that idea. He got to the club and asked for a caddie. None was available, so he took on a gentleman by the name of Peter Rees, a Welshman who operates a driving school. Good job for a caddie? Well, think again, because it's not the sort of driving school that helps you with slices and hooks; Rees instructs people on how to operate things behind the wheel. Before he took the job, Rees told Calcavecchia one other thing: It was the first time he ever walked the course at Royal Birkdale.
Riding momentum
When she tees it up tomorrow in Concord, N.H., for the 54-hole Futures Tour tournament, Vicky Hurst will be hoping to ride the momentum of her win at Gillette Ridge GC in Bloomfield, Conn., two weeks ago. In that tournament, she trailed by two through two rounds, but put on a closing-round show in winds that gusted to 30 miles per hour. Shooting 68, Hurst stormed past M.J. Hur and won by eight over one of her junior golf friends, Wake Forest sophomore Natalie Sheary of West Hartford, Conn. . . . The field at Beaver Meadow will include a flock of New Englanders from Massachusetts (Briana Vega) to Vermont (Libby Smith) to Rhode Island (Kim Augusta, Haley Gildea) to Connecticut (Lynn Valentine, Kate Stepanek, Jessica Stewart, Morgan Olds) to New Hampshire (amateur Chelsea Demers).
Two sides to story
Two of the more comical stories coming out of the British Open involved Montgomerie and Nick Faldo. Montgomerie expressed frustration that Scottish golf officials would not talk to him about how to develop good, young talent. Faldo told reporters he thought young players should come to him and ask about what it takes to stay mentally strong and win majors. They appear to have good points, except for this key: When have Montgomerie and Faldo been approachable?
Material from the Associated Press was used.
