Not only that, I’m facing the identical eighteen feet for 11 that I was looking at nearly a half hour earlier for 2, although it now feels like a bygone era, a time to be recalled with nostalgia. The good old days.
“How can I possibly hit it any softer?” I ask Seamus.
“You can’t,” says Seamus. “We got to hole it.”
This time, we split the difference and give it an inch and by an act of mercy—or pity—the ball bangs into the back of the hole and disappears. This doesn’t set off another round of deafening applause. It’s too late for that. Between Tiger’s deuce and my Spinal Tap–ian 11, I have gone from eight in front to one behind.
54
THERE’S A BENCH OFF the 12th tee. I collapse onto it and for the second time today, take off my shoes and socks and dump out the sand. So much spills out, I think of those giant piles and earth-moving machinery by the hidden practice area.
“I’m not sure there’s any sand left in those two bunkers,” I say.
“Doesn’t matter,” says Seamus. “There’s no one behind us.”
“Good point.”
Seamus seems neither deflated by the events on 11 nor put out by all that raking. “I know I told you this morning, and many times throughout the afternoon, that there was no way you were going to win this,” says Seamus, “but I think I might have been wrong. Because that eighteen-footer you just rolled in was as brave a putt as I’ve seen. You don’t make that, we might still be back there.”
“What was I going to do? Not hit it?”
“In any case, that’s ancient history.”
“Ancient?” I ask, looking back, literally and figuratively, at the 11th green, which is no more than thirty feet away. “You got to be kidding.” Over Seamus’s shoulder, I can make out Sarah and Noah desperately straining to get my attention, express their support, and make me feel a little better, Sarah with the reassurance in her smile and Noah with his tiny fist. But the wound is so fresh, I can barely face them.
“Travis, what you do on these next seven holes is your legacy. How you react could be the most valuable thing you leave your children. Are you going to curl into a fetal position after one bad hole? Okay, one very bad hole. Or are you going to set an example that could sustain and inspire your flesh and blood for generations?”
“That’s a damn good question. Let me get back to you in a couple of days.”
“We don’t have a couple of days. And by the way, as a footnote, you’re one shot out of the lead. With seven holes to play in the final round of the two hundredth playing of the Open Championship on the first and greatest course on the planet, you’re alone in second, one stroke behind Tiger Woods. Forgive me if I’m speaking out of turn, but I suspect that if someone had offered you that at the start of the week, you might have been tempted to take it. So let’s dump the last grains of Eden and Strath out of your FootJoys, lace them up, and go play some golf.”
Although I refuse to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging it, Seamus’s exhortation hits home. Everything he said is right and I know it. What I do on these next holes may not matter in the history of golf, but it does matter in the history of the McKinleys. It matters to Noah and Sarah and Elizabeth and will matter a shit ton to Simon, who has just set off on a similar treacherous path. And it matters to Dave and Ron and Chuck and my other friends back home. And it matters to me.
“Hey, Tiger,” I say from the bench, “I think you got honors.”
“I think you may be right,” says Tiger with a more generous smile than he usually offers between the ropes. My quip was intended to send Tiger a message and also the gallery, but most of all, I said it for Sarah, to let her know that I’m all right, that it’s just one frigging hole with some cruelly placed bunkering, and I’m not a broken shard of a human being whom she’s going to have to spend the next thirty years cheering up. When I look over and smile at her, she’s so relieved she’s almost crying. By making Sarah and Noah feel better, I feel a lot better myself, and by the time I get up off the bench, the worst of my eleventh-hole hangover is gone.
My tee shot is a little shaky but I keep it left, and after an acceptable 7-iron and acceptable chip, I will my five-footer into the hole for one hell of a bounce-back par. Once that putt drops, I’m okay, and for the next four holes—13, 14, 15, and 16—I compete like hell. I match Tiger shot for shot, par for par, fist pump for fist pump, and when we reach 17, aka Road, the most famous hole in the sport, I’m still just one back.
55
SEVENTEEN IS AS HARD as cement. But the macadam pavement on Old Station Road that runs next to the green and gives the hole its name is only part of the problem. The hole is 466 yards and plays longer, and the tee shot is blind. As usual, out of bounds is right, but on 17 bailing left is not an option. Because the hole doglegs right, you have no choice but to start your tee shot in the direction of the trouble. In fact, you almost can’t start it right enough, and your only chance of finding the fairway is to hit directly over the sheds of the Old Course Hotel, a surprisingly charmless edifice that runs along the right side of the fairway and that the McKinleys eschewed in favor of their much cozier motor home.
Tiger hasn’t surrendered the honors since he seized them on No. 10 and tightens his grip with a perfect 3-wood straight over the sheds. Since I don’t have his length or youth or anything else, I need to hit driver. Under pressure, I find that the smaller the target, the sharper the focus. If I’m aiming at a blade of grass, I’ll pick one side of it. The name of the hotel is printed at the top of the shed and Seamus points and says “right over the u in Course,” and I follow his instructions to the letter.
Even with driver, I’m 20 yards back of Tiger, 211 from the front edge.
For the most part, the Old Course greens are enormous, even after you divide the double greens in half, but 17 is the tiny amoeba-shaped anomaly, the smallest green on the course. Eating into the back-left side is another nasty high-banked bunker also called Road, and directly to the right, down a very short slope, the road itself, and every bit of it is in play. In keeping with tradition, the Sunday pin placement is at the back of the narrow green.
“The only sensible play,” says Seamus, “is short to take the bunker and road out of the equation. But with one down and two to play, sensible isn’t going to cut it.”
“So what do you think?”
“Five-wood. It can’t be over fifty degrees right now and to get to that back pin you’re going to need all of it.”
“Seamus, it’s amazing how things work, isn’t it?”
“How so?”
“One morning, just to feel like a human being, I get up early and go hit a bucket on a scruffy range in Encino, and now we’re on the seventeenth fairway of Road, the mother of all golf holes on the mother of all golf courses. And that guy over there in the red shirt with that prick of a caddy beside him is Tiger Woods. How did this happen?”
“Travis, I suggest we set aside these bigger, broader questions for now and think about your next shot.”
“My point is it comes down to people. The people who change your life. In this case, it came down to meeting you. Don’t think I don’t know that. Because I do. And I’m grateful.”
“I appreciate that, Travis. Truly. And I’d appreciate it even more if you’d think about this five-wood, because not only is it the wrong shot for this hole, it’s the hardest shot you’ve ever had to hit, and it’s going to require every bit of focus you can muster and then some.”
“Got it. Enough said.”
56
I COME CLOSE TO hitting the 5-wood of my and Seamus’s dreams. Excruciatingly close. I crawl into the quiet spot he urged me to find before every shot and the swing I put on it embodies everything about my game that is worthwhile. I flush it and the ball climbs into the cold damp air and banks left in a tight almost Tiger-esque draw. It bounces fifteen feet onto the green and rolls toward the back flag, but along the way it drifts ever so slightly right. That’s all it takes to roll off t
he side and slip through the short fringe. When the ball finally stops, it sits precariously in the middle of the road like a disoriented turtle.
“That is exactly why the correct play was short in front,” says Seamus, “but we got lucky.”
Seeing me in the road gives Tiger all the more reason to hit the short percentage shot, but perhaps he is tired of me clinging to his pant leg and wants to settle this thing now, because he flights his 8-iron right at the hole. His swoosh-festooned ball travels an eerily similar arc to mine, and also rolls over the edge, through the fringe, and onto the road. The only difference is that Tiger’s ball carries enough pace to roll through the road and comes to rest on a strip of grass between the macadam and a wall.
Our distances from the hole are close enough that the official with our group pulls out a tape measure, and while he determines who is away, Seamus and I take a good look at Tiger’s lie. You’d think Tiger reaching the grass and us in the road would put us at a disadvantage, but it’s the opposite. Chipping off macadam is hard for the club, not the golfer. The ball sits high, and knowing it’s impossible to hit it fat removes most of the guesswork. After the official concludes that I’m far, I chip it cleanly and the ball skids to a stop, three feet from the hole.
A handful of players who’ve already completed their rounds have walked back from the clubhouse to watch these last couple of holes in person. Among them are Colin Montgomerie, Tom Lehman, Tiger’s friend Notah Begay, and the Swedish star Jesper Parnevik. Parnevik is accompanied by his wife and children, the youngest of whom is carried by his blond nanny. Perhaps Tiger is human after all, because as the gallery backs away to give him room, he smiles flirtatiously at the striking young woman.
But what happens next is even more unlikely. Tiger’s ball has come to rest on a strip of grass between the road and a wall about six feet short of a fire hydrant painted the same municipal yellow as the boot affixed to my rear tire, and although the hydrant is not close enough to impede his swing or pose a threat, Tiger stares at it intensely as if hypnotized. It’s hard to fathom. Who other than Louie would be mesmerized by a fire hydrant, and maybe I’m imagining it, but when he finally turns away he seems shaken. In any case, he doesn’t evince his usual razor-sharp focus and his pitch runs ten feet past the hole. When he leaves his comeback short and I clean up my three-footer, Tiger and I are tied for the lead.
57
I GUESS BY THE time this book comes out, you will already know what happened on 18, but for those who have more important things to reflect on than who sunk which putt when, let me refresh your memory.
Eighteen is the easiest driving hole on the course, sharing the same double 130-yard fairway as No. 1, and you don’t have to worry about your ball trickling into the Swilcan Burn. On the other hand, no finishing hole is framed with as much history, geography, and architecture. The lack of a single tree makes the stone edifice of the R&A clubhouse even more imposing and has a similar effect on the sky and the sea. Running up the whole right flank of the hole is the town, and as you stand on the last tee you feel as if the entire population as well as the gray stone buildings themselves are welcoming you home. Add the minor detail that I’m tied with Tiger for the lead of the Open Championship, and that’s a lot of gravitas for a former journeyman from the Senior Tour.
At 356 yards, I can’t drive the hole, so Seamus sees little profit in trying. He’d rather see me hit a full wedge into the green than have to finesse something smaller. For the last time this week, Seamus gives me a target—the clock on the clubhouse—hands me a club—a hybrid 3—and asks me to kindly put some smooth on it. When the ball stops rolling, a full wedge is exactly what I have left.
Now Tiger commands the tee and for the next several minutes he and Williams barely exchange a word. No one has ever played the game like Tiger Woods and no one has ever taken his sweet time like him either. The way Tiger stands stock-still, his arms crossed in front of his chest, he could be waiting for a train. Or the one after it. When all is said and done, that stillness may be the thing about Tiger I’ll remember most.
Finally, Tiger utters one word I can’t quite hear, and Williams pulls the stuffed animal head off his driver. His practice swings contain all the audacity of an elite athlete at the peak of his powers, and the depth of his turn and the ungodly club head speed make my back hurt. For a second, I wish I were twenty-four again, but when I look at Sarah and Noah, the feeling passes. When Tiger finally makes the swing that counts, he unleashes another order of violence and the ball hisses off the head and hot-tails it straight at the Martyrs’ Monument, where Seamus and I nursed our coffees and our dreams. It bounces just short of the hollow in front of the green called the Valley of Sin, races through the putting surface, and stops on the steep bank just beyond the green.
Seamus and I are still shaking our heads over Tiger’s tee shot when we get to my ball a hundred yards short of that. “Poor fella,” I whisper. “A three-hundred-sixty-six-yard par four and he’s between clubs.” Even with Tiger on the bank, I got a pretty good idea I’m going to need a birdie and take dead aim with my wedge. It’s got the right weight and line and when it stops I’ve got all I could ask for—an uphill ten-footer for birdie.
The way Tiger’s ball has settled in the rough, he can’t do anything but trundle it down the hill. When it stops he’s at least five feet farther from the hole than me and looking at a far trickier sidehill putt, but if Tiger is annoyed at the inequity of that, he doesn’t show it. By now you probably remember what happened, but the amazing thing about witnessing it close up isn’t the quality of Tiger’s stroke or his read but how hard he hits it. He raps it so firm it takes all the break out of it and it might as well not be a sidehill putt at all and goes in dead center. If it hadn’t, it would have lipped out or gone twenty feet past easy. But I guess that doesn’t matter if you have no intention of missing.
Meanwhile, I still only have ten feet for the tie. Ten feet uphill, exactly the kind of putt you want, and now it’s Seamus’s and my turn to take our sweet time and we look it over from every possible angle, including a few that have nothing to do with anything except trying to get my heart rate down. When he’s reading it from behind the hole, Seamus even makes a little detour to whisper something to Sarah and Noah, before he comes back to me and says, “Just get it to the hole.”
Despite all the reading/stalling, my heart rate is still way higher than ideal, but I don’t have as much practice taking my time as Tiger, and I can’t make myself wait any longer. I step up beside the putt, make two brisk practice strokes, take one last look, and let it go. My only thought is Don’t be short, and it turns out that’s not enough of a thought for someone who intends to win the Open Championship. I’m so determined not to leave it short, I yank it left and miss the cup by a foot, then walk over and tap in for a useless par.
After all that Sturm und Drang, it turns out Seamus was right all along.
There was no way anyone but Tiger Woods was going to win this tournament. In the end, Tiger was going to be Tiger and I was going to be Travis. But there is one thing Seamus was wrong about. As I’m standing there, agonizing over the fact that I just missed a ten-footer by a foot, Sarah and Noah and Louie come running out onto the green and throw themselves on me and Seamus with such unbridled affection and enthusiasm that the winner of the tournament has to fight through the celebration to shake the loser’s hand.
“Great playing, Tiger,” I say.
“You too, buddy. You almost gave Williams a heart attack.”
58
THERE’S A LOT TO be said for establishing a routine in a foreign place. By now all four of us look forward with great anticipation to our little evening walk through town. Just because I missed a ten-footer by a foot is no reason not to enjoy it one last time.
When my responsibilities in the press tent are finally over and Seamus and the Mckinleys have exchanged email addresses and enjoyed one last fond embrace, we return to our favorite pub, where they’ve placed a RESER
VED sign on an outside table and left a bowl of water under it for Louie. Then we follow our standard route past the shops and the movie house, Louie sniffing suspiciously at light poles and signposts to see who has been encroaching on his adopted terrain.
On all of our walks, we have felt the warmth of the residents, and tonight the whole town is sharing in our near victory, and on every block a local expresses congratulations and/or sympathies. “You gave us all a great thrill,” says a woman about my age.
“And some hope,” adds her companion. Mostly, though, they nod and smile and make us feel comfortable and at home.
We pass the enclosed courtyard of St. Salvator’s College, which always makes me think of what it will be like when Noah heads off into the world, and then past the ruin of the cathedral and down to the water. As always, there’s a bit of a line at the ice cream shack and we happily join it, refusing all offers to move us to the front of the queue. “This is one of our favorite parts of our visit,” says Sarah, “and we’re in no rush to see it end.”
When it’s our turn, we take our cones to the bench overlooking the tiny harbor, where the small boats are bobbing and creaking at their moorings. As we’re enjoying our ice cream, a low-flying plane rips across the sky and we see the contrails of a private jet heading south along the ragged coast. “There goes Tiger,” says someone at a nearby table, and I realize that overhead Tiger and his girlfriend and perhaps Williams and Nike CEO Phil Knight are toasting the latest Tiger triumph.
“He may have the Claret Jug and the private jet,” I say, “but I hit the holy trifecta—best honey, great kid, loyal dog,” and then the three of us touch cones instead of glasses.
Miracle at St. Andrews Page 13
