Some Favorite Moments with Arnie, Tiger and Phil to Help Fill Golf Void
Are you enjoying the Masters highlights? Or do you find them a reminder of what we won’t see this week?
For me, they’re kind of like leftovers from a good meal. When you’re hungry, they can really hit the spot. But when you get down to it, they’re still reheated.
They also remind me that, while golf is best seen on TV, especially high-def TV, I am thinking this week of my favorite moments on the course.
You don’t see as much golf when you’re on the course. When I covered tournaments, we had to be in the press room things were heating up at the end of the day—to see all the golf and grab interviews. Walking the course usually was a luxury.
But what a wonderful luxury. (It also was great exercise.)
I am sure I logged more rounds with Tiger Woods than any other golfer. I totally get the people who scoff at all the attention he gets, whether he’s playing well or struggling.
But here’s the thing: Tiger is sort or like Notre Dame and Marilyn Monroe all wrapped into one. Love him or hate him, it’s a story. And you can’t take your eyes off of him.
I first saw Tiger right after he turned pro in the fall of 1996. He was 20 years old—trying to make enough to earn his tour card without going to Q school. He was playing at the Quad City Classic.
He made an 8 on the fourth hole of the final round. Some clever writer (not me) turned that into a fabulous ``quad city in Quad City’’ lead. Tiger, meanwhile, slammed his 6-iron into the ground in frustration.
And then he four-putted on the 342-yard seventh hole.
That’s golf. And when you see it up-close, when you see a guy who’s as gifted as anyone who ever picked up a golf club, humbled, it puts our own frustrations in perspective.
I used to have a tape of Tiger on the 18th tee at Pebble Beach, when he was lapping the field at the 2000 U.S. Open. He took out a driver, prompting Johnny Miller to question the decision because Woods could easily go out-of-bounds to the right.
Woods proceeded to hook his drive onto the beach. Not realizing there was a TV microphone on that remote tee, he said, ``Gosh darn, you humping cucumber!’’ Or something like that.
``Well, that makes my criticism mild,’’ Miller said.
I used to dial up that tape of Tiger cussing before I went out to play an important round. If the best player in the world, winning the U.S. Open by 10 shots, could become that aggravated, I should not only keep disappointment in perspective. I should expect it.
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Walking with Phil Mickelson also tended to be interesting. He and his longtime caddie, Bones Mackay, often chatted loud enough for fans and media to hear.
At the 2011 PGA in Atlanta, they got into a very involved discussion on the tee of a par-four. Mickelson finally pulled out his driver and teed up his ball.
``Maybe I should just yell, `Fore!’ right now,’’ he said. And then he bombed an immense drive into the gallery on the right side of the hole, above the traps to the right of the narrow fairway, which was guarded by a lake on the left.
When we arrived at his ball, the gallery was cleared, leaving him with a nice lie on the trampled grass and a good look at the green. He pulled out an iron and struck a shot that gave him a good birdie chance.
It was then that I realized Phil and Bones had decided to take the water and the bunkers out of play by deliberately hitting the ball into the crowd, where their odds of having a decent lie were enhanced by the fans who had trampled the grass there.
You had to be there to realize it was a clever strategy, not a horribly missed teeshot.
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My all-time favorite on-course round came at the 1997 U.S. Senior Open at Olympia Fields, outside Chicago.
On Sunday, teeing it up in the first group—it had to be before 8 a.m.—was Arnold Palmer. And never mind the time. The gallery was huge.
He was 67. He had only made the cut at 11-over because his playing partner, club pro Joe McDermott, had missed a makeable putt at the end of his Friday round.
``In a roundabout way, missing that putt was outstanding,’’ McDermott told me . ``This was an experience I'll cherish.’’
That was something we all could agree on. Palmer shot an 80 that day. But his gallery didn’t mind. This was a last chance to see Arnold Palmer. And he did not disappoint.
He waved to an adoring crowd, stopped to chat with young children and say hello to people he might or might not have known. He even smooched a few older women, Hollywood-style, including United States Golf Association president Judy Bell.
On the 11th hole, a 161-yard par three, he hooked his tee shot down into a deep ravine. Taking out another ball, he promptly yanked that into the ravine, too.
Undaunted, he went down in the ravine and found his ball.
``Give me a sand wedge. And give me a line,’’ he said to his caddie, who showed Palmer where to aim for the flag.
The King, the man who made golf amazingly popular in the early days of television, popped his ball onto the green and two-putted for an apparent bogey.
Walking to the next tee, though, he examined his ball and realized it was his second ball. So he told the scorer accompanying the group to change his score from 4 to a triple-bogey 6. I thought that was very cool.
Looking back, that day on the golf course ranks up there with any of those rounds with Tiger or Phil. Or anybody.