Moment of Glory

by John Feinstein

  But he had started 2003 in typical Furyk fashion. The fourth-place finish at the Masters was his seventh top-10 finish in nine tournaments. That included losing a playoff to Scott Hoch at Doral. By the time he flew into Chicago to begin preparing for the Open, he had already made $2.3 million for the year, even though he hadn’t won yet.

  The USGA had decided to return the Open to Olympia Fields Country Club for the first time in seventy-five years. The championship had been played in the Chicago area frequently—at Chicago Golf Club and Medinah Country Club—but only in 1928 had it been played at Olympia Fields. That had been a memorable Open, with Johnny Farrell beating Bobby Jones in a playoff.

  The USGA hadn’t gone back to Olympia Fields because it wasn’t considered a classic golf course. Most people liked Medinah better, but one exception was executive director David B. Fay, who had made a habit of breaking longtime traditions when it came to course selection. Fay wasn’t crazy about Baltusrol, which had hosted five Opens in the New York area (Springfield, New Jersey), so he dropped it from the Open rotation and replaced it with Bethpage Black, a municipal course on Long Island. He wasn’t a fan of Medinah, so when executive board member Buzz Taylor (a Chicagoan) brought up Olympia Fields as a potential site for the ’03 Open, Fay and the rest of the committee were receptive to the idea of going back.

  One person who liked Olympia Fields was Furyk. “I liked the way it set up the first time I saw it,” he said. “It wasn’t that long, and the holes all set up pretty well for me. After I played my first practice round, I felt as if I had a good chance to play well.” The only problem he had going into the week was his putter. The model he had been using had been declared illegal (for technical reasons), so he had pulled out an old one from his closet. Fortunately, it felt comfortable right away.

  The putter issue resolved, Furyk went about preparing, his confidence growing each day. Olympia Fields is not a bomber’s golf course, and it rewards consistent driving and good iron play. That suited Furyk just fine. By the time he played his last practice round on Wednesday, he was about as confident as he had ever been going into a major.

  “You never know what’s going to happen once the tournament starts,” he said. “And I don’t think anyone, except maybe Tiger, ever goes in thinking, ‘I’m going to win.’ But I did feel pretty confident.”

  So confident that he stunned his wife that night as they were getting ready for bed. “He just walked in and said, ‘I’m going to win this thing,’ ” Tabitha Furyk remembered. “We had been together for nine years at that point, and I had never heard him say anything like that.

  “When we were first dating, he was playing in this one-day exhibition, and he had a putt to win on the last hole. He walked over to where I was and gave me a kiss, as if to say, ‘I’m going to win this for you right now.’ Then he missed the putt. He never did anything remotely like that again.

  “He’s a pessimist by nature. He’ll come in after struggling through a round where he puts up a decent score, and I’ll say, ‘Hey, you hung in there.’ I’m the cheerleader. Usually his response is something like, ‘No, I left it out there.’ That’s Jim. He’s a glass-half-empty kind of guy most of the time.”

  Now, Furyk was telling his wife the glass was about to overflow. Her response was simple: “Let’s do it,” she said.

  Furyk had a late tee time on Thursday. He was in the 12:30 pairing on the 10th tee, along with Darren Clarke and Phil Mickelson. This was no accident. The USGA likes to have fun with its Thursday–Friday pairings. Once upon a time, when Fay was still putting together the threesomes, there was something known as “the prick pairing.” Fay would put three players together generally considered to be, well, pricks. Only when word got out about the pairing did Fay and his successor, Tom Meeks, stop doing it.

  But Meeks still put players together for a reason. In this case, Mickelson, Furyk, and Clarke were generally ranked one, two, three in the unofficial world rankings as the Best Players to Have Never Won a Major. All of them knew that was why they were together, and none of them really wanted to talk about it very much.

  “On the one hand, it’s an honor, because it means people think you’re a good player,” Furyk said. “On the other hand, it’s a reminder whenever it comes up that you haven’t won a major yet.”

  The Thursday weather conditions were perfect for scoring—the temperature never got above the sixties, the humidity was low, and there was almost no wind. Bret Quigley, playing in the morning, shot 65 to take the lead, followed by Justin Leonard and Jay Don Blake at 66. Australian Stephen Leaney was at 67. The biggest surprise of the morning was Tiger Woods struggling to shoot an even-par 70.

  Furyk was having a very solid round, already a couple under par on the back nine, when he heard a huge roar coming from several holes back. It was the kind of roar usually reserved for Woods or Mickelson doing something spectacular. Furyk knew Woods had played in the morning, and he knew Mickelson was playing with him, so he was somewhat baffled by what he heard. Only when he checked a leaderboard soon after did he begin to piece together what had happened.

  Everyone in golf was aware that Bruce Edwards, who had been Tom Watson’s caddy for most of thirty years, had been diagnosed with ALS—Lou Gehrig’s disease—early in the year. There were very few people in golf as well liked as Edwards. He had been one of the first of the truly “professional” caddies in the 1970s. He had an easy smile and a quick wit and a friendly word for almost everyone.

  The news of his diagnosis was devastating for golf people. Even at that point, he had admitted to close friends that walking 18 holes carrying a forty-pound golf bag was getting more and more difficult. Watson had cut back on his practice rounds and lightened his bag—taking out things like umbrellas, extra balls, and anything not absolutely necessary—to make it as easy as possible for Edwards.

  Watson was fifty-three and was playing in the Open on a USGA exemption. He had won the tournament in 1982, beating Jack Nicklaus at Pebble Beach when he chipped in for birdie at the 17th hole, one of golf’s most memorable shots. He knew this would quite possibly be his last Open, and it was almost certain that it would be the last one for Edwards. Time was running out fast.

  Watson had also started on the 10th hole, exactly an hour after the Best Players to Have Never Won a Major threesome of Furyk, Mickelson, and Clarke. He bogeyed the 10th hole, then saved par with an eight-foot putt on the 11th. On the 12th, he had 170 yards to the hole following his drive and decided to hit a six-iron, even though Edwards thought he might need to hit a soft five.

  Watson’s call was right. He holed the six-iron for an eagle two. That was the roar Furyk heard.

  As the afternoon wore on and Watson’s name popped up on the leaderboard, everyone noticed. In fact—especially with Woods already finished for the day—fans began flocking in the direction of the threesome that included Scott Verplank and Argentina’s Eduardo Romero. In the locker room, players who would usually sit and talk with the TV as background noise stopped what they were doing to watch.

  Furyk noticed Watson’s name on the board and could see that something special was going on. But it wasn’t until he finished his round—shooting a very solid 67 to join Leaney in a tie at that moment for fourth place—that he had a chance to watch Watson play his final few holes.

  “Normally, especially with an afternoon tee time, I’d grab something to eat and go right to the range to meet my dad and Fluff [caddy Mike Cowen],” Furyk said. “But when I walked in, everyone was sitting around the televisions, watching, which you never see on a Thursday. It was one of those things you just had to see.”

  By the time Furyk got into the clubhouse, Watson was on the fifth hole (his 14th of the day), and he was four under par, one shot behind Quigley. Like everyone else, Furyk knew something special was happening. “We all knew by then just how sick Bruce was,” he said. “It didn’t seem likely that he was going to be able to keep caddying for much longer. Knowing that, seeing how emotional both Tom and Bruce
were getting those last few holes, it became emotional for me to watch.”

  On the seventh hole—Watson’s 16th of the day—his 20-foot birdie putt appeared to stop an inch from the cup. While the crowd groaned, Watson began walking in the direction of the ball. Verplank, standing a few feet from the hole, could see that it was still moving ever so slightly. “It’s going in!” he screamed at Watson, afraid Watson might tap it in prematurely. Watson had no intention of doing that. He was going to wait the full ten seconds that was allowable once he reached the ball before tapping in.

  Just as he reached it, the ball—as if on cue—dropped into the hole. Watson kicked his leg in the air euphorically, and Edwards began to laugh and cry at the same time. (One of the things ALS does is make it very difficult to control or conceal one’s emotions.) Seeing a close-up of Edwards with tears in his eyes, Furyk felt himself choking up, as did millions of others watching on TV around the country.

  Those watching the telecast weren’t the only ones struggling with their emotions. The people producing the telecast were struggling too. Tommy Roy had been the executive producer for NBC’s golf telecasts since 1990. When he had been promoted to executive producer for NBC Sports, he accepted the job on the condition that he would continue to produce golf.

  “I still love the adrenaline of the truck,” he said. “That part’s never changed for me through all the years.”

  Roy knew Watson well, and he knew Edwards too. When he saw the shot of Edwards with tears in his eyes, he felt himself beginning to choke up. “I had to wait a second before I hit the button to talk to the guys in the booth at that moment,” he said. “I knew I had tears in my eyes, and I knew a lot of the guys around me did too.”

  By the time Watson got up and down from a bunker at the ninth to shoot 65 and tie Quigley for the lead, he and Edwards had become the story of the Open. It almost didn’t matter how Watson played the next three days; the sight of he and Edwards hugging on the ninth green after the 65 would be an indelible memory for everyone watching.

  Furyk was happy for Watson and Edwards. The thought that Watson might somehow impede his path to winning the championship didn’t really cross Furyk’s mind. With the exception of Woods, no one looks at another player on Thursday and thinks, “He’s the guy I have to beat.”

  Woods had shot a 70 on Thursday, and Furyk was aware of his presence, five shots behind the two leaders and three shots behind him. But it was much too early to worry about anyone or anything—other than trying to post another good number on Friday.

  Which is exactly what he did. He had a very early tee time on Friday—7:30—and once again the conditions were about as benign as could be. Mickelson and Clarke were both playing reasonably well: Mickelson would shoot 70–70 and Clarke 70–69. Furyk was the hot player in the threesome. He bettered his opening round by a shot, shooting 66. That put him at seven-under-par 133, the lowest 36-hole total in U.S. Open history.

  It did not, however, put him in the outright lead. Vijay Singh, who had been back in the pack on Thursday after shooting 70, went hyperlow, shooting a 63. That matched the lowest round ever shot in a U.S. Open. Only Johnny Miller, in the final round at Oakmont in 1973 (on a rain-softened golf course), and Jack Nicklaus and Tom Weiskopf, on the same day at Baltustrol in 1980, had ever gone that low in an Open.

  Singh’s 63 and the fact that he and Furyk had both broken the 36-hole scoring record caused a lot of buzz around the locker room. What was going on here? This was the U.S. Open, where par was supposed to be sacred. Players who frequently complained that Open conditions were too difficult were now grumbling that the golf course was too easy.

  “I thought it was the conditions as much as anything,” Furyk said. “Those first two days there was very little wind, but they’d had rain the week before, and the golf course was still pretty soft. You combine no wind with soft greens on any course, and you’re going to get some low scores.”

  Watson had also played in the morning wave. Clearly exhausted from the emotionally draining day he’d had, he shot 72 and dropped back, although at 137 he wasn’t out of contention.

  Furyk almost made it look easy that morning, finding fairways consistently off the tee, hitting greens, and putting well. He was never in any serious trouble all day.

  “If you hit it way off line, you’d get in trouble like at any Open course,” Furyk said. “But I felt in pretty good control of my swing all day. I was very comfortable.”

  “The Open, maybe more than any other tournament, is like a marathon,” he said. “The old cliché that you can’t win the golf tournament on Thursday or Friday but you can lose it applies even more than normal. You really want to stay out of your own way. To see that Vijay had put up a 63 was surprising, even in mild conditions. My thought that day was that I was in a good place. Whether it was the lead or not, I felt good about the way I was playing.”

  Furyk was happy to be at the top of the leaderboard, but he knew there were far more 36-hole Open leaders who had been nowhere to be found late on Sunday than there were Open winners, so he wasn’t jumping for joy.

  “That’s not his way anyway,” Mike Furyk said. “He’s almost always calm regardless of the circumstances. It’s one of his strengths.”

  Furyk had played in enough Opens—nine—to know that staying calm going into the final 36 holes was critical.

  8

  The Kid from Nowhere

  TWO SHOTS BACK OF Jim Furyk and Vijay Singh heading into the weekend were two players with very little experience in majors and even less experience at the Open. In fact, although Jonathan Byrd and Stephen Leaney were paired in Saturday’s second-to-last group, they might as well have been playing in their backyards for all the attention they received. Behind them were the two leaders, and just in front of them, after a Friday 66 had put him three shots off the lead, was the man still considered the favorite—Tiger Woods.

  Byrd and Leaney were afterthoughts to all but friends and family.

  Byrd, the twenty-five-year-old tour rookie who had played so well at the Masters—finishing tied for eighth—was in his second major and his first Open. He had gotten in by surviving the 36-hole sectional qualifier at Woodmont Country Club outside Washington, D.C. He had shot 69 on Thursday and backed it up with a 66 on Friday to pull into a tie for third. It was evident that he was a rising star, but few people expected an Open rookie to end up with the trophy on Sunday afternoon.

  Even fewer people gave any thought to the notion that Stephen Leaney, who had followed his opening 67 with a 68, might be the winner. Much of that had to do with the fact that very few people in the United States had ever heard of Leaney or knew anything about him or his golf game.

  He was a thirty-four-year-old Australian who had been playing on the European Tour for seven years, in large part because he hadn’t been able to find his way to the PGA Tour. This was the 10th major he had played in (six of them British Opens), and he had made a total of two cuts—finishing 68th in the 1998 PGA Championship and tied for 37th in 2002 at the British.

  He had been to Q-School for the U.S. Tour three times, missing “comfortably,” as he put it, in 1998 and 2000, before missing by one shot in 2002. He had gotten into the Open by finishing 11th on the European Tour’s Order of Merit the previous year. The top 15 on the Order of Merit are exempt into the next year’s U.S. Open. Leaney had been quite successful in Europe, winning six times there in seven years, but his dream was to play on the PGA Tour.

  “I think if you’re a golfer, that’s where you want to be and where you need to be,” he said. “It’s the best tour with the best players. Ever since I was a kid, my dream was to play on the PGA Tour. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the European Tour. I made a very good living there. We [Leaney and his wife, Tracey] loved living in London, but I knew in my heart if I didn’t make it to the U.S. at some point, I would feel a void. I felt as if I was starting to run out of time a little.”

  What’s more, he and Tracey were expecting their first ch
ild in September, so if a move to the United States was going to be made, sooner would be a lot better than later.

  Leaney’s was certainly not your typical golf story. He had been born in Busselton, a country town of about ten thousand in western Australia. His parents, Peter and Freda, had migrated to Australia from Great Britain soon after they were married. Andrew, their first child, was born in 1966, and Stephen came along two and a half years later. Peter Leaney was an electrician, and his wife was a high-school English teacher. Soon after Stephen was born, they moved to Sydney, where they lived for seven years, while Peter did his work in the coal mines, before moving back to Busselton; the mining work there was less dangerous and paid better, and the cost of living was less.

  “I had a wonderful country upbringing,” Leaney said. “It was the kind of town where you never locked your doors, the kids played all sports, and we went to the beach all the time. We lived in a house that wasn’t more than three hundred yards from the water.”

  Like a lot of Australian kids, Leaney’s first love was cricket, which he first learned in the backyard from his dad and older brother. Later he played some Aussie Rules Football, basketball, tennis, and—finally—golf. He remembers going to the golf course with his dad as early as age seven but says he didn’t really get hooked on the game until much later.

  “I would hit a few shots, go around in the buggy with dad when I was small, but that was about it,” he said. “My dad was self-taught. He had learned the game by reading two Ben Hogan books, Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf and Power Golf, and he taught me how to play. He was a good player, had a handicap as low as three.