Creativity
You can't talk about wizardry with a golf club without mentioning Spaniard Seve Ballesteros, a three-time British Open and two-time Masters champion.
Ballesteros turned pro as a 17-year-old in 1974 and in 1976 was runner-up in the British Open at 19. He won his first British Open at 22 in 1979, becoming the youngest golfer in the 20th Century to capture that coveted crown. His victory in the 1980 Masters made him the first European to win at Augusta National Country Club, and the youngest winner of a Green Jacket until Tiger surpassed him in 1997.
Ballesteros also won the Masters in 1983 and the British Open in 1984 and 1988. In four of his five major championship wins, he trailed heading into the final round.
It was his first British Open triumph, in 1979 at Royal Lytham & St. Annes, that cemented Seve's reputation as a Houdini on the golf course. In his second round, he didn't have a tee shot in the fairway until the 14th hole and yet shot 65. In his final round, he found the fairway once and played the final seven holes 1 under par, including a birdie at the 16th after hitting his drive into an area used for parking cars.
"I don't aim for the rough; it just goes there," he said following the 1979 British Open. He also knew he could get away with wayward tee shots on a links-style course. In the United States, where "target golf" puts a greater premium on accuracy, Seve seldom fared as well, especially in the U.S. Open. He did not often play and was rarely in the hunt in the states (only six of his 91 wins worldwide came on Amerian soil), although he did finish third in the 1987 U.S. Open at San Francisco's Olympic Club, and probably would have won if his opponents had to play from some of the spots Ballesteros put himself off the tee.
A combination of a bad back and erratic driving eventually shortened Seve's career. But none could deny that in his heyday, he was magic personified.
Calm/patience
Tom Watson, a winner of five British Opens, two Masters and one U.S. Open, gets high marks here. It's probably why he's still competitive at 59 and came within a whisker of winning this year's British Open. In his prime, he held his own against the biggest names in the game, especially Jack Nicklaus. It was no doubt his calm that contributed to Watson's famous chip-in from the rough at 17 at Pebble Beach in the final round of the 1982 U.S. Open that helped him beat Nicklaus for what would be his only U.S. Open victory.
But the person that comes to mind for me in Zen-like mentality is England's Nick Faldo. He has has achieved an inner calm that is evident on his golf analysis for CBS.
This wasn't always the case. Faldo was once nicknamed "Foldo" for having blown chances to win the 1983 British Open and 1984 Masters. But he remade his game and came back stronger than ever for about a 10-year span, winning the British Open in 1987, 1990 and 1992 and the Masters in 1989, 1990 and 1996.
There are any number of examples of Faldo's serenity. His overcoming deficits in four of his six major titles, including playoff wins over Scott Hoch and Raymond Floyd, the latter a legendary steely eyed competitor, in consecutive years in the Masters.
Faldo's most steady turn in a major, though, came in winning his first major, the 1987 British Open at Muirfield in Scotland. In the final round, Faldo, a day after his 30th birthday, parred all 18 holes to win. Paul Azinger, meanwhile, bogeyed the final two holes to lose the tournament. It's funny now to see the two of them together in the broadcast booth on occasion.
Guts/determination
Where to begin here. There's any number of professionals who qualify for this category.
Ireland's Padraig Harrington, who at one time trained to become an accountant, played 36 consecutive majors without much distinction until winning the 2007 British Open and the British Open and PGA Championship in 2008. He overcame deficits to start the final round in all three wins, including a six-shot margin at the 2007 British Open.
Mark O'Meara, after a stellar amateur career that included winning the 1979 U.S. Amateur, won about a dozen tour events, including the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am five times. But he had competed in 58 majors - missing the cut in 19 - before finally breaking through at the 1998 Masters at age 41. Four months later, he won the British Open.
But my vote here goes to Tom Lehman. Like Harrington and O'Meara, it took Lehman a while to break through in a major. He won the British Open in 1996 at age 37, following near misses in the 1993 and 1994 Masters and the U.S. Open in 1995 and 1996.
Lehman, unlike Harrington and O'Meara, had a much more difficult road getting to compete regularly on the PGA Tour. He struggled on the tour from 1983-85, lost his card, then competed the next six years on the Asia and South Africa tours and the second-tier Ben Hogan tour in the U.S. before regaining his PGA Tour privileges.
He was the PGA Tour Player of the Year in 1996, the year before Tiger Woods arrived full-time and began rewriting the record books. Lehman was a three-time Ryder Cup player and captain of the U.S. Ryder Cup team in 2006.
No comments:
Post a Comment