Of the millions who watched the horrifying ending of last year’s U.S. Open on television, no one was more mortified than the veteran pros gathered around the tube in the locker room at Southern Hills in Tulsa. As first Mark Brooks and then Stewart Cink and then Retief Goosen three-putted the 72nd hole, their fellow players, having been there and done that, wanted to avert their eyes.
Describing his reaction, Tom Lehman said, “Ooh, cringing. It was like when you first heard about John Wayne Bobbitt. Ooooh. Same thing.”
Losing an Open isn’t quite as painful as what Lorena Bobbitt did to her husband with a butcher’s knife. But when a golfer cracks under Open pressure, it’s as though everyone gets to peek at his tormented soul.
The only consolation to the victim is the knowledge that no one is immune. Sam Snead, the all-time leader in PGA Tour wins, recently went to his grave without a U.S. Open title primarily because he took an eight at the final hole in 1939.
The greatest collapse of all was by “the King,” Arnold Palmer, who blew a seven-shot lead on the back nine in 1966 at San Francisco’s Olympic Club, enabling Billy Casper to force an 18-hole playoff. As if that weren’t excruciating enough, Palmer had a two-stroke lead with nine holes to go in the playoff and lost by four.
“I think most majors are lost, not won,” said Loren Roberts, who three-putted with a chance at an Open victory in 1994. “It’s the guys who can stay even keel enough while everybody else is self-destructing around them.”
All four major championships–the Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA–come with an extra helping of pressure, and all have witnessed legendary collapses. But the severity of the playing conditions at the U.S. Open seems to exact a higher body count than the others.
The USGA took the Black Course at Bethpage State Park, which was tough enough to require a posted warning to less-skilled golfers, and turned it into a monster for this week’s 2002 Open.
“With the enormousness of it, you can expect people to make mistakes,” said Roberts, who failed to qualify for this year’s field. “You need to play for par, and when you get a chance at a birdie, you’ve got to make it.”
What most players try to do is get in a rhythm in which they grind out pars by keeping the driver out of the rough and hitting greens in the regulation number of strokes. The problem is that, in golf, there’s a lot of time to think between shots and veer off course.
“Crazy things happen when you’re under pressure,” Davis Love III said. “Your mind is easily distracted on a good day under normal conditions. When you get a U.S. Open on the line, you start trying to think or not to think, and crazy thoughts pop into your head. You play to get yourself in a position to win, and then, when you get to that position, you start doing something else.”
Like Roberts, Love and Lehman suffered breakdowns under Open pressure. Lehman had a chance to win three consecutive Opens–1995 at Shinnecock, 1996 at Oakland Hills and 1997 at Congressional. He was tied for the lead with close friend Steve Jones in ’96 when he hit a terrific drive that went through the 18th fairway, finished in the rough and led to a bogey.
Some players let the one that got away destroy them, but Lehman rebounded to win the British Open a month later at Royal Lytham & St. Annes. “Even though I lost, I didn’t feel like I just chopped it around on Sunday and gave it away,” he said of Oakland Hills. “I felt I was going to win one soon because I was playing way too well not to.”
The 1999 British Open at Carnoustie featured a famous fold by France’s Jean Van de Velde, who, leading by three strokes, hit into water on the 72nd hole, triple-bogeyed the hole in an ill-advised attempt to hit out of the water, and wound up in a tie with Paul Lawrie and Justin Leonard. Lawrie won the playoff.
Lehman’s aggressive approach didn’t work in the ’97 U.S. Open at Congressional. Trying to break out of a tie with a birdie at No. 16 the last day, Lehman went for a tight pin and missed, making bogey out of the deep fringe. In an effort to get it back at the next hole, he hit the water and wound up third to Ernie Els.
“I felt like, `This is my Open. I’m going to make a birdie or two coming in and win this thing,'” Lehman recalled. “The lesson to be learned is that it’s great to feel that way about it, but you still need to be a little bit smarter in an Open and make sure your misses are playable.”
Love also had a golden opportunity to win his first major at Oakland Hills in ’96. He needed only a two-putt on the last green to put himself in position for a playoff with Jones.
“I was above the cup, and I left the first one short when nobody was leaving it short,” Love said. “Then I hit the next one too easy, and it broke out of the hole. I bogeyed the last two there to get out of a chance to win and out of a playoff.”
Love finally got his major when he won the 1997 PGA at Winged Foot. But the breaks don’t even out for everyone. Roberts has gone on to win seven PGA Tour events, but he has finished in the Top 10 at a major only once since losing out to Els at Oakmont in ’94.
No one remembers that Roberts was 6 over with 10 holes left to play in the second round and seemed on his way to missing the cut when his putter caught fire.
“I take the positive out of it,” he said. “I shouldn’t even have been there, but I was.”
In the playoff, Roberts finally succumbed to Els with a bogey at the 20th hole to lose the chance of a lifetime.
“My wife and I got home Monday evening and turned all the phones off,” Roberts said. “We basically had our mourning time for a couple of days. Then we got over it and went on about our lives.
“Some guys don’t ever forget. There are classic stories about guys who have never been able to put it behind them. You know, they sit there and watch the tape over and over. You’ve got to forget about it.”
