Moment of Glory

by John Feinstein

  Curtis hadn’t eaten much at breakfast, so he sat down and ate a little bit more. He was trying to calm himself even before he went out to warm up. “I felt like I needed to slow myself down. I could feel all sorts of adrenaline, and I was more than an hour from my tee time. I didn’t want to get to the first tee and be worn out already. There’s no doubt the toughest thing about a day like that is waiting around.”

  He finally went outside and decided to hit a few putts before he went to the range. “I was just trying to get a feel for the environment. I could hear the roars out on the golf course, and I knew how special the day was going to be. When I got to the range, I finally began to calm down a little bit. The range isn’t that far from the grandstands that surround the 18th green, and I could see people already piling into the grandstands so they could have a spot when the leaders came up—even though it was four hours away. Those huge grandstands make it feel more like you’re in a football stadium than on a golf course when you’re walking up 18. There aren’t any corporate boxes or anything like at most tournaments, so it’s different. While I was on the range, [Greg] Norman was finishing, and the roar for him walking up was really, really loud. I thought that was pretty cool.”

  Curtis hit a few extra drivers on the range, his focus still being the opening tee shot. He was playing the old mind game with himself, trying to stay in the present, trying not to think about what was going to be at stake as he made his way around the golf course. Even if he didn’t win, his life would change with a high finish. He could clinch his exemption for 2004 by finishing in the top three or four, and a top-four finish would get him into the Masters the following year.

  “Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m sure I knew all that,” Curtis said. “But I honestly had just one thought: hit the first fairway, then go win the golf tournament.”

  Bjorn and Love were the last two to arrive on the range, Bjorn dressed in a white shirt and black pants. He had his sports psychologist, Jos Vanstiphout, with him. Vanstiphout, who wasn’t actually a psychologist of any kind but had made a reputation for himself by working with Ernie Els, was trying to win his second straight British Open since Els had won the year before. Els himself had dropped back the previous day with a one-over-par 72 and was six shots behind Bjorn—not an impossible mountain to climb, but an unlikely one, especially given the players he’d have to go through to get to Bjorn.

  The first thing Curtis noticed when he finally walked on the tee and shook hands with Price was the wind. It wasn’t blowing much harder than it had the three previous days, but it was left to right. Curtis, who hits the ball left to right, would have preferred it the other way. Waiting for Ivor Robson, who has been introducing players on the first tee at the British Open for twenty-nine years, to announce him, Curtis could feel his stomach churning.

  But seconds after he heard Robson say, “This is game number 34. From the USA, Ben Curtis!” he felt suddenly calm.

  “Once I got up and over the ball, I was okay,” he said. “The first tee shot of the day is always tough, but I had gotten myself so prepared to hit that one shot, it was almost as if, when I got over it, I had already hit it before, so I was fine. When I took the club back and saw the ball head down the middle, I felt a huge wave of relief come over me. I thought, ‘Okay. Here we go. Now let’s go play some golf.’ I was just really pleased with the idea that I didn’t have to hack the ball out of some weeds and try to make a 30-footer for par.”

  Instead, Curtis found himself with a wedge in his hands, and he hit it to six feet. Several years later, he would remember making a 15-footer for birdie on the first hole. It was, in fact, a six-footer. That it seemed that much longer is evidence of just how unnerving the last round of a major can be, especially for someone going through it for the first time.

  “It’s hard to describe, but it just feels different when you’re out there,” he said. “It feels different than a Sunday on tour. It even feels different from Saturday at a major. The pace of play is slower. I noticed that right away. Phillip [Price] is a pretty deliberate player, but when we got to the third hole [a par-three], we had to wait. That told me right away, it was going to be a long day and that I wasn’t the only one feeling some nerves.”

  Price turned out to be about as good a pairing as Curtis could have hoped for under the circumstances. He was friendly and outgoing, asking Curtis questions about his background, how his first year on tour was going—anything, it seemed, to keep his mind off the pressure. “I really think if I had played with Davis or Vijay or Tiger, it would have been a completely different kind of day,” he said. “It would have just been so quiet.”

  There certainly wasn’t a lot of chatter in the last three groups as they began their rounds. Perry and Garcia both made bogeys at the first hole, and Woods and Singh missed long birdie putts and settled for pars. Love was in trouble off the first tee and came up short of the green, leading to a bogey. Bjorn was way left off the tee, over the green, and also made bogey. Since Price had also bogeyed the first, that meant that five of the last eight players had bogeyed the hole. Two had made par.

  Only one had made birdie. That was the rookie in the orange shirt, most of whose opponents could not, as Furyk said, pick him out of a lineup.

  CURTIS MADE ROUTINE PARS on the next two holes, which meant he was tied for the lead with Bjorn and Singh, who had made a long birdie putt at the second. After Curtis found the fairway off the fourth tee, Curtis Strange, ABC’s lead analyst, tried to lend perspective to what it meant for Ben Curtis to be tied for the lead during the last round of the British Open.

  “Going from being on the Hooters Tour a year ago to leading the British Open is a lot like going from Class A ball [the lowest level of minor league baseball] to being a star in the major leagues,” he said.

  To which anchor Mike Tirico added: “And this is just his sixteenth tournament in the big leagues.”

  For most of the front nine, Curtis was Joe Hardy—the character in Damn Yankees, who had been transformed from an old man into a young superstar so he could revive the Washington Senators. He reached the fourth green in two and made a two-putt birdie to take the lead at one under par. On the fifth, he missed the green left and chipped to six feet.

  “This will be our first real chance to see how his nerves are holding up,” Strange said as Curtis settled over the putt. When it went into the center of the hole, Strange said, “I’d say they’re pretty good right now.”

  The other leaders were also taking advantage of the early holes, with the exception of Love, who bogeyed three of the first four, including the par-five fourth. Up ahead, Nick Faldo had birdied two of the first seven holes to get to one over par and stir the hearts of the locals. But he missed a short par putt on the eighth and never really made a move after that, eventually finishing tied for eighth.

  The wind was picking up as the players moved toward the turn and the most difficult part of the golf course. Curtis made another two-putt birdie at the seventh to get to two under par, which again tied him with Bjorn and Singh for the lead. A few moments later, when Woods, Singh, and then Bjorn birdied the seventh, Singh had a one-shot lead over Woods, Bjorn, and Curtis at three under. No one else was within three shots of those four men.

  But now the easy downwind holes were behind them. It was here, as players say, that the golf course really began. “The eighth hole is the hardest on the golf course,” Ben Curtis said. “Any par there was a good par.”

  At that point the ABC producers tracked down Ben’s father, Bob, and got him on the phone briefly with Tirico and Strange. “We’re all sitting around here at the golf course [Mill Creek],” Bob Curtis said. “We’re trying not to think too far ahead.”

  His son was doing the same thing. At the ninth, a short but tricky par-four with the pin tucked on the right side of a green that tilted from left to right, Curtis stuck a wedge two feet from the hole for a tap-in birdie. Then at the tenth, he rolled in a 20-footer for another birdie. For the first time all day,
he showed just a hint of emotion, shaking his fist as the putt went in.

  “That was when I think I started to get a little bit excited,” he said. “The tenth is a tough second shot. It’s an elevated green, and from the fairway it looks like everything just falls off the earth around it. If you miss the green left or right, it’s a very hard up and down. I was happy to get it on the green. Making the putt was a huge bonus.”

  Curtis was now five under on the day and four under for the tournament, and he led Bjorn by one. Singh had bogeyed the eighth, as had Woods—three-putting from 40 feet.

  It was at that point that Mike Tirico brought up Francis Ouimet, the only player in history to have won the first major he had ever played in. That was in 1913 and had been the subject of books and a movie. It was fair to say that Curtis was closing in on something historic. Eight holes, though, was a long way to go.

  “I really was in the zone by then,” Curtis said. “I knew after nine that I’d gone into the lead, but I really wasn’t thinking about it much. I just knew I felt great with my putter. I had great feel for the greens, even in the wind, at that point. It seemed as if everything had slowed down. I didn’t feel any nerves at all.”

  The 11th was a downwind, 230-yard par-three. “It played exactly the same every day,” Curtis said. “Same wind and I hit the same club—a five-iron.”

  The shot landed just short of the green and rolled to within 10 feet of the hole. Still confident, Curtis made that one too, for his third straight birdie and his sixth of the day. He was five under par and now had a two-shot lead.

  Behind Curtis, only Bjorn was keeping pace. Singh had bogeyed the eighth and the tenth to drop to one under, and Woods had bogeyed the eighth and the 10th and was at even par. Bjorn turned at three under.

  On the 12th, Curtis pulled his tee shot a little bit but had 70 yards to the hole with a good angle. “I thought I had a good chance to make another birdie,” he said. “But I thinned it and hit it over the green. Right at that moment, for the first time all day, nerves came into play. All of a sudden, I was worried about what would happen if I made a bogey. Sure enough, I made a bogey.”

  He hit a reasonable chip to five feet but missed the par putt, his first miss inside 10 feet all day.

  “I could almost feel the momentum shift right there, even though I still had the lead,” Curtis said. “If I had made the putt, my confidence would have come right back, but I didn’t. As soon as I missed, it felt as if everything started going fast again.”

  Curtis snap hooked his drive at 13 but caught a decent lie and managed to gouge his second shot onto the green. His 25-foot birdie putt pulled up just short. “That would have been nice,” he said. “The 14th tee is scary, and by then my lead on Bjorn was down to one.”

  What made the tee shot at 14 tough was that Curtis had to aim the ball at the out-of-bounds markers and try to draw it back into the fairway. Instead, he hit another dead pull—“which I do when I’m nervous,” he said—and had no chance to go for the green. He had to lay up well short of the green because there was a creek running through the fairway that he couldn’t carry. He hit what he thought was a great shot with a four-iron and watched it roll through the green, the ball coming to rest in the rough to the left.

  His lie was okay, but the green ran straight downhill from where he was, and it was almost impossible to stop the ball. His chip went to the other side of the green—dangerously close to the out-of-bounds stakes—and he missed the 12-foot par putt coming back. Now he was three under for the tournament and tied with Bjorn, who had missed the green at 12 after his drive found a pot bunker but then saved par by making a 10-footer. Singh and Woods were both three shots back.

  Curtis was trying to stop the bleeding. He hit a good drive at 15 but got another case of the pulls on his second shot and missed the green way left, leading to his third bogey in four holes. Bjorn now had the lead, and Woods and Singh, after making birdie at the par-five 14th that Curtis had bogeyed, were one shot back of Curtis and two behind Bjorn. When Bjorn also birdied the 14th, hitting a wedge to three feet on his third shot, he was at four under and appeared to be in control. Love, who had made three birdies in four holes to pull back into the fringes of contention, missed an opportunity to get close when he didn’t make his birdie putt at 14, leaving him at even par.

  At that moment, it was Bjorn’s tournament to lose. He had a two-shot lead with four holes to play, and his nearest competitor—Curtis—had only two holes to play since he had just parred the par-three 16th, missing his 30-foot birdie putt by about six inches.

  When Woods bogeyed 15 to drop back to even par, Bjorn’s path appeared even clearer. But Bjorn himself found a pot bunker at the 15th and also made bogey, dropping to three under.

  Up ahead of Bjorn, Curtis believed if he could par 17 and 18, he still had a chance to win. He’d had trouble driving the ball at 17 all week. “It’s a weird-shaped fairway,” he said. “You hit your drive right down the middle, and you would end up in the first cut. It seemed like you couldn’t find the fairway from the tee no matter what you did. It was one of those holes the guys complained about.”

  Despite having again found the first cut, Curtis had a good lie. Sutton suggested he hit a five-iron, aim it left of the flag, and let the wind drift the ball back in the direction of the hole. As Curtis stood over the shot, Bob Rosburg, the ex-PGA champion who had been working for ABC forever as an on-course commentator, told the audience, “This is a sucker pin. You come up short at all, the ball will roll back and you’ll be way short.”

  He was prescient. Curtis hit the shot exactly the way he wanted to, but the ball landed about 20 feet short of the flag and never made it over the ridge in the middle of the green. It rolled back to about 35 feet short of the hole. “It was close to being perfect,” Curtis said. “I told myself, ‘Well, at least you’re uphill.’ But I gunned the putt trying not to leave it short and went about eight feet by the hole. Then, I got nervous on the par putt. I really hit it badly. It never had a chance.”

  Another bogey. That was four in six holes. Few people were surprised. After all, it was the British Open. It was his first major. Kids playing their sixteenth tournament on tour don’t win the British Open.

  The person who may have been suffering the most at that stage was Candace. She had been walking along outside the ropes most of the day, listening to the BBC feed on a little transistor radio that she had rented. As the hour grew late and Ben hung in contention, her nerves got worse and worse.

  “It’s the only day I can remember where I really wanted a shot and a beer while I was on a golf course,” she said later. “By the time he got to the last few holes, I was a complete wreck.”

  The crowds following Curtis and Price had grown as the day wore on. By the 16th hole, Candace had no view from outside the ropes, and one of the officials got her under the ropes so she could see. “Being able to see,” she said laughing, “wasn’t necessarily a good thing.”

  As Curtis walked onto the 18th tee, Woods and Singh, both at even par and one shot behind him, were walking off the 16th green. Bjorn, at three under, and Love, also at even par, were waiting for Woods and Singh to finish on the 16th green. All Curtis wanted to do was finish with a par and then let the chips fall where they may.

  “I wasn’t angry,” Curtis said. “I never got angry or down the whole day. To be honest, if someone had told me starting the day I’d finish in the top five, I would have been thrilled. Sure, for a little while it had looked as if I had a chance to win. But then it looked like, ‘Oh well, I didn’t pull it off.’ But I was thinking I’d have other chances to win, and this wouldn’t be the last time I’d blow a lead. I knew I’d learn from it because it’s harder to learn from winning than from losing. All I wanted to do on 18 was make par. I knew that wouldn’t be easy, but I knew if I did, I’d finish in the top four. I’d looked at the board walking off 17 and saw Thomas [Bjorn] was ahead by a couple.”

  The 18th was probably the most difficult driv
ing hole on the golf course. For the day, only 10 percent of the players in the field would find the fairway. Thirty-one of 72 would make bogey, and another one would make a double bogey. There had been one birdie. Curtis missed the fairway left but drew a reasonable lie. His second shot, a six-iron, rolled through the green to the back fringe.

  Back on 16, Love, hitting first, had hit a gorgeous six-iron that landed 10 feet to the left of the flag and stopped. Bjorn also selected a six-iron. The ball was right of the flag all the way. It took one hard bounce on the green and hopped into an adjacent bunker.

  Judy Rankin, who had been walking with the final twosome all day for ABC, went over and got a good look at the ball. “It’s a good lie,” she said, “but the sand is a little bit soft.”

  Soft sand means a player can’t afford to play a shot too delicately. Bjorn was no more than 25 feet from the hole, but there was an upslope just outside the bunker. That meant he had to be careful not to take too much sand and come up short, because the ball might roll backward if it didn’t make it past the upslope.

  Standing on the other side of the green, Love assumed that Bjorn would make sure to get the ball past the pin. “He had a two-shot lead,” he said. “I knew that wasn’t a bunker you wanted to mess around with. I figured he’d hit it past the hole, try to get it inside 10 feet, and if he missed the par putt he’d still be in the lead.”

  Bjorn got over the ball, blasted it out, and then watched helplessly as it landed on the upslope, teetered for a moment, and then rolled backward. It ended up back in the bunker, no more than a foot from where it had been before he had played the shot. Bjorn glanced down at the ball in disgust and then, much like a Sunday hacker who was upset with himself, took almost no time before he hit the ball again.