Nick Price was born in South Africa but spent most of his life in Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe. He carries a British passport, has a home in Florida and would like to become a United States citizen.
Now then, forget all that. Even if he came from Peoria, he would have been out of this world Saturday. He shot a 63 at Augusta National, a course record. He collected 10 birdies, a course record. He still doesn`t lead the 50th Masters, but if he never shows his face around this sacred greenhouse again, they`ll be talking about his round for years, until they replace the dogwoods with plastic plants.
”I remember watching my first Masters when I was 11,” said Price, now an effervescent and athletic 29. ”This is something you dream about, just playing here, let alone shooting 63.”
A 63 at the church of golf? Before Saturday, it was thought impossible. Saturday, it still seemed implausible. By a man who shot 79 in the opening round? By a man who began his historic pilgrimage with a bogey? By a man who didn`t reach any of the four par-5 holes in two strokes? By a man who missed the cut in his debut here last year?
”Amazing, but true,” said Australian David Graham. ”And he`d have had a 62 if it weren`t for the paint.”
Ah, the paint. As a concession to television, they paint the inside of the cups white. The paint dries, hardens and tends not to give the putter the benefit of the doubt. Shooters` rims, be gone. Better for you, in your living room.
And there was Price, studying a 30-footer on No. 18, for birdie. He said he wanted to be brave, didn`t want to leave it short, to betray his perspiring palms. ”And if I didn`t look nervous, I was,” he said. He stroked the ball boldly; it found the hole and rimmed around and around and out. A 359-degree excursion. Price took his seventh par and a deep breath. He did not blame the paint.
”I don`t think I could have possibly gotten more out of today than I did,” said Price, who is one swing behind Greg Norman. ”I would have liked 62. That would have been my lowest score ever. I`ve had a couple 63s back home. If you hit a putt right, it should go in even if the cup is surrounded by concrete. I can`t complain about my putting. Almost everything I touched went in. You dream about a round like this.”
The fantasy took shape at dawn. The weather was absolutely perfect for low numbers. The wind that haunted the first two rounds vanished, and so did the sun. It was humid, too. Augusta National`s deceitful greens figured to stay somewhat moist, to be something less than unsafe at any speed, as they had been.
”That 79 Thursday,” Price recalled, ”I didn`t play that poorly. But I three-putted six times. I`d never seen surfaces like that. If you weren`t careful, you`d have a four-footer, and if you didn`t make it, you`d have a 10- footer coming back. It happened. The greens were much quicker than in practice rounds . . . maybe too quick.”
But Saturday, as Norman would remark later, the course was ”benign.” As we speak, Masters` officials probably are meeting, plotting furtively. They don`t take kindly to 63s on this parcel of real estate. For Sunday`s finale, we`re likely to see pins placed between azalea bushes, flagsticks bobbing from Rae`s Creek, paint brushes around the cups instead of paint. But they still can`t take away Nick Price`s 63.
”I started thinking about the record after I birdied 10, 11 and 12,” he said. ”I`d studied a lot about the Masters. I knew what it was. I knew the record was 64.”
So did Bruce Lietzke, his playing partner. But Lietzke, gentleman that he is, talked of other things, like a catcher whose pitcher has a no-hitter going into the ninth inning. Price was not so superstitious. He whispered to his caddy, an Irishman named David McNeilly, who–get this–wore a number on his front pocket, as do all bag-carriers here. The number was 63.
”At the start, I was just hoping to break 70 again today,” allowed Price, who had a 69 Friday. ”This is only my fifth competitive round at Augusta. There`s a lot I didn`t know. There`s a lot I still don`t know.”
Price, who turned pro in 1977, has won but one tournament in the United States–the prestigious World Series of Golf in 1983. In the 1982 British Open at Royal Troon in Scotland, he led by three strokes with six holes to play but lost to Tom Watson. In the PGA Championship last August outside Denver, he had a chance at the top but finished fifth.
”I learned that you have to hang in there,” Price said. ”I learned that sometimes you might not be hitting the ball well, but you have to have character.”
Saturday, it didn`t hurt Price to have a sand wedge that repeatedly worked, or a putter that was more a wand than a club. Saturday, it didn`t hurt to have grown up admiring Gary Player, the South African who initiated the challenge from overseas to American golfing supremacy. Saturday, it didn`t hurt to have Player`s 64 in 1978 at which to shoot.
”He was a tremendous encouragement to me,” said Price. ”To all of us. I first came over here to play a junior tournament in 1974, at San Diego. Then I played one in Florida. I didn`t know what to expect. Am I good enough? Can I play over here? You know, in Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe, where I grew up, there are only about 500 golfers.”
And in 50 Masters tournaments, only one player ever shot 63. Nick Price. It takes most of us four years to shoot 10 birdies. He did it in four hours. Paint that.
