Four Majors in the Haze

While watching the waning moments of the PGA Championship, I started to contemplate the 2009 Major season, ready to declare the Major championships of 2009 as greatest the sport has ever known! 

Think about it, it all started back in April.  Against the backdrop of being mired in a global economic malaise, the Masters provided us with an opportunity to escape the unrelenting current of bad news and get lost in beauty and serenity that can only be found in early April at Augusta National.  Why the tournament could not have turned out to be more of a fairy tale ride.  Here we had 48 year-old Kenny Perry, still fresh off his home-state, starring role in the triumphant efforts of the United States Ryder Cup team, boldly and confidently striding to victory down the stretch at Augusta.

Then we had a U.S. Open that played out like it was directly from central casting, as the People’s Phil Mickelson, raw and untested, due to the care he was providing to his beloved wife Amy, somehow found it within himself to give the New York faithful the very thing they most craved.  A coveted victory for the man they had adopted as one of their own, and a fitting revenge for a victory denied three-years earlier at the Black Course’s blue-blood cousin, nestled down the road in the affluent suburbs outside the City.

Then there was 2009’s defining moment.  At the Open Championship at Turnberry, Tom Watson literally turned back the clock, reminding us all that “59 is the new 29”, matching Harry Vardon for the most Open Championships of all time.

As I watched Tiger Woods lord over the field at Hazeltine, so my mind drifted to the Major tournament events that would forever be remembered, each defined as a “I remember where I was when” moments.

But…wait a minute…maybe my recall has simply become lost in misty delusional recollections, my memory as clouded as the foam atop my Guinness??

Kenny Perry did indeed author a Masters performance to remember.  Through three rounds the veteran played inspired golf, sharing the lead with Angel Cabrera at 11 under par. 

The final round began with a flash, as both Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson would make a Sunday charge up the leader board.  Mickelson birdied six holes on the front nine to score a 30, tying a tournament record.  Mickelson would finish the day with a 67 and a total score of 9 under par, good for 5^th place.  Woods would post a final round 68, for an 8 under par total and a share of 6^th place.

But it was Kenny Perry that seemed to be assured of victory, leading by two strokes with two holes to go.  But, bogies on the 17^th and 18^th Holes would send Perry into a sudden death playoff against Chad Campbell and Angel Cabrera.  Campbell would drop out after the first playoff hole, and after Perry failed to get up and down from the left of the green on the second playoff hole, it left Angel Cabrera with a comfortable two putts from 15 feet to secure his first Masters victory and his second Major title.

2009 Masters Champion Angel Cabrera

In June, the U.S. Open returned to Bethpage’s Black Course, with great anticipation.  The people of New York themselves were as much a part of the story as was this storied municipal golf course that was to host the U.S. Open for a second time.  However, it was Mother Nature that decided to assert herself as one of the wettest spring and summer of all time in the northeast, brought copious amounts of rain over Father’s Day weekend, to Long Island.

The week’s drama began with Mickelson sharing that his wife Amy had asked him to bring back the U.S. Open trophy for her hospital room.  Mickelson’s efforts that week were nothing short of heroic, undone though, by missing two par putts over the last four holes, to finish in second place a record 5^th time.

Coming in ranked as the 882^nd player in the world, in the final round, David Duval thrilled the crowd with three straight birdies on the back nine to tie for the lead, but when a five foot par putt on the second to last hole spun 180 degrees out of the cup it took with it, his chances for victory.

Ricky Barnes may have been a long shot, but he put up a gallant fight through three rounds.  However, a front nine 40 led to a score of 76 and Barnes would settle for a share of 2^nd place with Mickelson and Duval. 

So it would be a two stroke victory for Lucas Glover at the 2009 U.S. Open, his win underscored by the fact that he won the National Championship as only the second player in 25 years to win a Major in which he had never previously made the cut (Lee Janzen was the other, in 1993), and he was the first qualifier to win the U.S. Open since Michael Campbell in 2005.  This U.S. Open win also represented his 2^nd career win.

July brought with it great enthusiasm as the return of the Open Championship to Turnberry’s Ailsa Course was expected to be an affair when the young lions starring on golf’s global stage would battle it out on the fabled links.  Only the stage was commandeered by anything but a young lion, as Tom Watson seemed to channel the likes of “Old Tom,” as in Old Tom Morris, the Scottish legend and master.  Golf can be a magical experience and the show put on by Tom Watson one month ago was one putt short of being the most significant event in the long history of the game.

I was privileged to be a witness to the events at Turnberry, joining the legions who watched Watson’s magical march evolve from the impossible, to the improbable, to the possible, to the likely, and finally, ultimately, to what could have been.

The 18^th green at Turnberry’s Ailsa Course was lined on each side with massive grand stands, only, unlike that which we’ve grown accustomed to week in and week out, these grand stands were not reserved for VIP’s or corporate big-wigs.  The price of admission into these coveted seats was to stand in line and wait, for a seat to open up, and so I did with my friends.  Soon, we scored four perfect seats near the top of the grand stand with a perfect view of the entire 18^th Hole and great views over the rolling dune-scape that was Turnberry.  The entire property seemed bathed in a golden glow and watching huge armies of galleries migrate from one dune peak to valley made me feel very much like I was watching medieval opposing forces, the only thing missing were the army flags.  If our tiny BBC radios did not provide us with the details, then surely we could feel the flow and ebb of the day simply by listening to the battle cries of joy and moans of agony rising up from different parts of the golf course as the situation mandated.  No doubt, those of us on the 18^th Hole made our fair share of joyous and distressed wails as well.

Matt Adams in the Grand
Stands at the 2009 Open Championship

Tom Watson’s drive on the 18^th Hole in regulation was brilliant.  Leading by one, facing a relatively simple second shot, there did not seem to be anything that could keep him from being crowned as the man that would own the greatest golf story of all time.  Then, fate and circumstance intervened.  Watson hit a perfect second shot into the 18^th green.  Many will tell you he hit it too far, but they were not there.  Rather, he hit it just too short, his ball landing on a small knoll in the green that was imperceptible on a television screen, cruelly catapulting his ball forward without the benefit of spin and landing in an untenable position, where once more, the television screen images tending to diminish the severity of the task left before him.  To a viewing world, they may have held their breath over Old Tom’s last putt, but to the eye witnesses, there was a discernable resignation from many, merely seeing where the unfortunate approach shot came to rest.

The rest, as they say, is history and accounts that the galleries were not gracious to Stewart Cink are false.  While virtually everyone there was sad about Old Tom’s demise, Stewart Cink was greeted with congratulatory respect befitting the Champion Golfer of the Year.

Champion Golfer of the Year, Stewart Cink AP

Tiger Slayer, Y.E. Yang reacts to a birdie   API

And so, there I was, clarity setting in as the lights faded over Hazeltine, and realized that golf is not a game defined by the sentimentality of those of us standing along the rope lines or perched in the grandstands, or watching (or listening) at home.  The game of golf, like the game of life awards its spoils not to those who we simply want to win, those that we feel should win, or “deserve” to win, but golf’s victories go to those who earn it over the course of an entire tournament, to the very last putt drops into the cup. 

If any of us had set out to write the perfect script for the 2009 Majors, then the game gave us tantalizing glimpses into what those story lines could have been.  But in the end, the game did what the game does, as the winners were deemed by merit, not sentiment.  Not withstanding the pulling of our heart strings, that is exactly the way it should be.