Moment of Glory

by John Feinstein

  Campbell actually left his bunker shot in the rough, trying to punch the ball out rather than playing a standard bunker shot. He then hit a good shot out of the high grass to six feet but missed the putt for par.

  Micheel, wanting to be sure he didn’t let his downhill putt wander too far past the hole, left it 10 feet short. A three-putt par would definitely be a downer. But, as he had done all week when he had to, he came up with a great putt, the ball diving straight into the hole. He was back to four under for the tournament and suddenly led Campbell and Clark by three, with four holes to go.

  Prosperity, however, was not Micheel’s friend on this particular Sunday. After taking so long to choose a club on the 189-yard 15th hole that he actually apologized to Campbell for the delay, he hit a seven-iron. The ball found the left corner of the green, leaving him a tricky, hard-breaking 45-foot putt. Campbell hit six-iron and was 35 feet below the hole.

  Once again, Micheel left himself with some work to do when his birdie putt slid 10 feet below the hole. Given the way he had been putting, that didn’t seem too daunting. Plus, even if he missed, he would still lead by two with three to play.

  Except that Campbell proceeded to drill his birdie putt—the first long putt he had made all day—and Micheel’s putt got a good deal longer. He put his first truly bad stroke of the day on the ball, leaving it short and left. Bogey. Two-shot swing. In golf vernacular the score was now Micheel 3, Campbell 2, Clark 1. Cejka was about to finish at even-par 280. Chances were that would not be good enough. But the ballgame was back on.

  The 16th was the last real birdie hole on the golf course. It was 439 yards but was a straightforward hole that was playing straight downwind. Statistically it was the second easiest hole on the course, playing at 3.96 strokes per player on the day. Clark had just birdied it to get back to one under.

  Campbell’s drive found the left rough, and Micheel’s the right rough. They both drew decent lies, but Micheel had a much better angle with the pin back left. Campbell found the front of the green with a pitching wedge but was 60 feet short. Micheel also hit a hard pitching wedge, and his ball skidded to a halt 20 feet below the flag. Campbell cozied his birdie putt close to the hole and tapped in safely for a par. Micheel stalked his putt for a good long while before settling over it. His putting stroke, missing a hole earlier, came back. The ball went straight into the hole. Now the score was 4–2–1.

  Micheel understood the situation clearly. A CBS graphic showed that Ben Curtis’s win a month earlier at Royal St. George’s had made him the seventh man in history to make his first tournament victory a major championship. The first player to accomplish that feat had been Jack Nicklaus at the 1962 U.S. Open. Of course Curtis had taken it a step further, becoming the first man since Francis Ouimet to win the first major he had ever played in. Micheel, playing in his third, wasn’t that far from Curtis.

  On the 17th tee, Micheel took a deep breath, much as he had done on the first tee, to calm himself. This time, though, it didn’t help. His drive sailed left into the deep rough. Seeing an opening, Campbell hit his best drive of the day, crushing it way down the fairway. Length was key on the 17th since the hole was 495 yards long. That was one reason why Billy Andrade had said that Micheel’s closing bogeys on 17 and 18 on Saturday were almost like pars.

  Micheel had little chance to make a par after his drive. He was forced to punch out of the rough and wedged safely to 30 feet. From there he two-putted for bogey. Campbell had a birdie chance, hitting a seven-iron to 25 feet, but his putt went wide and he tapped in for par.

  One hole to go. Clark had missed a 15-foot birdie putt at 18 to finish at 279—one under par. Micheel had a one-shot lead on Campbell, and he knew he had to stay out of the deep rough off the 18th tee, especially after Campbell’s tee shot found the right side of the fairway, bouncing from the first cut into the short grass.

  Micheel had been thinking that the golf tournament was going to come down to himself and Campbell since the 15th green. “I knew Tim was close and that Cejka was in at even, but I just thought it was going to be Chad or me,” he said. “I didn’t feel like it was match play until those last three holes. Then I did.”

  The 18th was the hardest hole on the golf course. For the day the field had averaged 4.50 strokes per man on the hole. There had been only five birdies among the 68 players who had completed the hole. Micheel just wanted to make par and force Campbell to make a birdie to tie him.

  He liked the way his drive felt coming off the club, but his heart almost stopped when he saw the ball heading in the direction of the left rough. The ball hit the ground in the first cut, about a foot from the deep rough, and bounced right, stopping in the first cut with a good lie.

  “I could see the ball from the tee after it stopped,” Micheel said. “That was all I wanted. I knew if I could see it, I had to have a reasonable lie. That was a huge relief.”

  By now Stephanie Micheel was walking inside the ropes because it had become impossible to see from outside, and PGA officials had invited her and Pam Campbell inside so they could see and for safety’s sake, especially given Stephanie’s pregnancy. Seeing Shaun’s ball in a safe spot, Stephanie walked with Pam to an area behind the green so they could watch their husbands hit their second shots.

  “I was a mess by then,” Stephanie said. “It had been such an up-and-down day, and all I could do was watch. Sometimes it’s just very hard to do that.”

  Micheel and Campbell walked to their balls, which were identical distances from the green—each man had 174 yards to the flag according to their caddies. When his caddy, Bob Szczesny gave him the yardage, Micheel smiled. “I had 174 yards to the flag from the other side of the fairway in almost the same wind on Friday,” he said. “I had no doubt that seven-iron was the right club.”

  There was some question about who should hit first. Micheel, knowing what he wanted to hit, had his seven-iron out of the bag and was ready to play, so—almost by default—he hit first. Campbell didn’t seem to mind. Wadkins thought Micheel had made a smart move being ready to hit first.

  “It wasn’t smart,” Micheel said. “I wish I could make that claim. I was just ready to hit my shot. I felt very good about it. The lie was good, the club was comfortable.”

  Almost as soon as the ball was in the air, Micheel heard Szczesny’s voice. “Be right!” he yelled.

  When a player or caddy says that, it isn’t a reference to direction but to distance. Szczesny could see that Micheel had hit the ball perfectly, and it was headed right at the pin. The question was the distance.

  “I was really surprised when I heard Bob’s voice,” Micheel said. “In all the time [three years] we had worked together, I don’t think he had ever once put his mouth on my ball.”

  That’s player-speak for a caddy “talking” to a ball when it is in the air.

  The ball landed short and right of the flag and began rolling directly at the hole as the crowd’s roar got louder and louder. “This might go in!” Nantz screamed as the ball kept rolling.

  It finally stopped two inches—that’s two inches—from the hole.

  The 18th green at Oak Hill is 45 feet above the fairway. From where Micheel was standing, he could see only the top of the flag, and when the ball landed there was no way of knowing how close it might be to the hole. Standing there, Micheel could hear the roar building, and he knew he had hit a good shot, perhaps a very good one. He shook his fist, figuring at that moment that he was close enough to guarantee a par but having no idea that he had just won the championship—barring a Campbell hole out from the other side of the fairway.

  “I knew from the crowd reaction that it was good, but I had no idea how good,” he said. “I turned to the CBS cameraman standing there and said to him, ‘How close is it?’ but he didn’t answer me.”

  Up ahead in the fairway, CBS’s David Feherty, who had walked all 18 holes with Micheel and Campbell, was frantically trying to get Micheel’s attention to tell him where the ball had ended up. �
�He told me later he was standing there holding his fingers two inches apart,” Micheel said. “I didn’t see him.”

  Campbell couldn’t see the ball either, but he knew it had to be close judging by the crowd reaction. “I figured he had stuffed it from what we were hearing,” he said. “I didn’t know it was literally a kick in, but I knew he’d probably hit the shot of his life.”

  Campbell’s second shot was an excellent one. It bounced right and stopped 15 feet away. It was one of the best second shots of the day at 18. It just wasn’t close to being the best shot in his twosome.

  When the ball was in the air, Stephanie Micheel was standing in a spot where she didn’t have a clear look at the flag. As the crowd’s roar grew louder, she walked forward and shrieked in joy and shock when she saw where the ball had stopped. She turned around and saw Pam Campbell standing there.

  “I was so happy, but then I saw Pam, and I had no idea what to say at that moment,” she said. “She was great. She put out her hand and said, ‘Congratulations.’ Then other people came up to me, and I didn’t see her again after that.”

  Inside the clubhouse, Billy Andrade, who had been paired with Els on Sunday and had shot 74 to finish in a tie for 10th, had joined his family after signing his scorecard and cleaning out his locker. Jody, his wife, their two children, and Jody’s sister Betsy had flown in from Atlanta to watch him play the final round.

  “Because we had such a big group, we didn’t go into the player-family dining area,” Andrade said. “I think they may have been breaking it down by then anyway. So we went into the members dining area to get something to eat. I had seen Shaun and Chad walking off the 18th tee, and I knew the situation.

  “I wanted to watch the end. By then I was pulling for Shaun, in part because I’d played with him Saturday but also because I’d been so impressed by him. He was one of those guys you could tell right away ‘got it.’ He was just a consummate pro and a gentleman. I really liked him right away. It wasn’t anything against Chad; I just wanted to see him win.

  “I had just put some food on my plate and was about to go sit down near a TV set when the place just exploded. I mean exploded. I turned around, and I saw the ball rolling right next to the hole. I just couldn’t believe it. The moment of his life, he hit the shot of his life. It was the kind of moment we all dream about.”

  Halfway up the hill, hearing the ovation building but still not knowing where the ball was, Micheel began running. When he got to the top of the hill and the front of the green, he was stunned. “I had thought it might be three, four feet,” he said. “But then I looked and I saw where it was and it hit me that I’d won. I had actually won. The place was going crazy, people cheering and shouting. I’d never heard anything like that—not for me anyway—in my life.

  “Then I saw Steph on the other side of the green, and I can honestly say it was the happiest, most perfect moment of my life. I simply couldn’t believe it had all happened that way.

  “I turned to Bob and said, ‘Think I should just go up there and knock it in left-handed?’ I was joking, but he looked at me and said, ‘No.’ I realized how big a moment it was for him too.”

  Instead of tapping in left-handed, Micheel marked his ball so Campbell could putt before bedlam broke out when he tapped in. Campbell two-putted for par, giving him second place alone, a shot ahead of Clark and two ahead of Cejka.

  Micheel tapped in, took one more deep breath to take in all that had happened, and found Campbell to shake his hand. After the handshakes on the green, Stephanie came out to hug her husband. Micheel gave her a hug and a kiss and then realized there was another member of the family he wanted to kiss too. So, he bent down and kissed Stephanie’s stomach, thus including Dade—who would be born on November 20—in the celebration.

  It was just about as sweet a moment as anyone had witnessed in golf in a long, long time.

  16

  Life Begins Anew

  IT ALL BEGAN TO hit Shaun Micheel when he walked into the scoring trailer. No round of tournament golf is officially complete until a player signs his scorecard. Since a player’s official card is kept by the other player in his twosome, it is incumbent on a player to be absolutely certain that he checks the card carefully.

  Anyone who knows anything about golf history knows there are sad stories about players failing to check their cards carefully enough and signing for incorrect scores. Once a player signs his card, the score he signs for is his official score. If he mistakenly signs for a lower score, he is disqualified. If he signs for a higher score, that becomes his score.

  The most famous wrong-score incident was the Masters in 1968. In that instance, Tommy Aaron, who would go on to win the Masters five years later, was keeping Roberto De Vicenzo’s scorecard. On the 17th hole, De Vicenzo made a birdie three and finished the day tied with Bob Goalby, meaning the two men would play off (in those days 18 holes on Monday) for the title.

  Except that Aaron had written down a four for De Vicenzo on the 17th hole, and De Vicenzo didn’t catch the mistake. He signed the card and officially finished one shot behind Goalby. Ironically, it was Goalby who never completely got over what had happened. For years he felt as though he was not treated as a true Masters champion, which was unfortunate since he had nothing to do with what had happened.

  Nowadays players have plenty of backup and checkpoints to make sure nothing like that can happen. They keep their own scorecards unofficially, and there is a walking scorer with each group who records each score hole-by-hole and inputs it into the computer scoring system. Most players will check their own card, then ask the walking scorer to read them their scores hole-by-hole, then they will finally check all of that against the official card.

  As soon as Micheel sat down and began going through his card, he was almost overcome by the thought that he was going to sign for a wrong score. He went through the card he had kept, the walking scorer’s card (read to him from the computer), and Campbell’s card. He reread the scores to himself and then read each number aloud to confirm that the numbers on the card kept by Campbell were consistent with what everyone else had. Then he sat down and wrote out his scores hole-by-hole on a blank scorecard and compared them to what was on his official card to be absolutely certain he had it right.

  Finally, cautiously, he signed the card. When it was done, he sat back in his chair completely drained and exhausted. “I swear that was more nerve-racking than hitting the seven-iron on 18,” Micheel said. “The guy taking the scores drew a smiley face around my score and wrote down next to it, ‘First place.’ That was when I started breathing again.”

  Having signed his card correctly, he was fitted by CBS with an interrupted feedback (IFB) earpiece, because the network was hoping to hook him up with his parents before going off the air. That never happened, in part because Micheel had taken so long to sign his card. Still wearing the IFB that would never be used, he was escorted back to the 18th green, which had now been taken over by the suits of the PGA of America, all eager for their moment on camera during the awards ceremony. M. G. Orender, the president of the PGA, was so intent on making sure his official spiel got on the air—“On behalf of the twenty-eight thousand golf professionals who make up the PGA of America and work to grow the game of golf,…”—that Micheel almost false-started on several occasions, reaching for the trophy thinking Orender was finished. Not quite.

  Finally, they handed Micheel the trophy, and he happily kissed it.

  Throughout the telecast, Jim Nantz had referenced the fact that Micheel was planning to take the following week off so that he and Stephanie could look for a bigger house to accommodate Dade’s impending arrival. “They may have to find one with room for a trophy room too,” Nantz said on several occasions.

  “That Wanamaker Trophy would take up a lot of space,” Lanny Wadkins added at one point.

  Not exactly. The Wanamaker Trophy never leaves the possession of the PGA of America, much like the Wimbledon trophies, which are handed out on center
court, then instantly taken away from the champions and returned to their case once the new names have been engraved on them. Like Furyk and Curtis, Micheel would have the option of having a smaller (90 percent) version of the trophy made for his trophy room at a cost of about $40,000.

  After the ceremony, Micheel went through his postround media paces and returned to the clubhouse for a toast from the Oak Hill members and the PGA of America (fortunately, all twenty-eight thousand men and women who work to grow the game were not present). Then he and Stephanie had to retrieve their luggage from their courtesy car because they were turning it in, a decent trade since the PGA had a chauffered limousine ready to take its place.

  “It was a little bit eerie when we went to the car,” Micheel said. “It was probably ten o’clock—at least—by then, and the lot was completely empty except for our car, which was parked at the far end because I’d been the last one to get there, being in the last group. It felt like we had parked the car about a year earlier, not nine or ten hours earlier.”

  Everything was piled into the limo, and Shaun and Stephanie and a friend from Memphis who had flown in to fly them home joined them. As soon as they were in the car, it occurred to Shaun and Stephanie that neither one of them had eaten since before the round had started. “We were starving,” Shaun said. “It was 10:30 on Sunday night. There weren’t a lot of options. And I knew room service at the hotel would be closed when we got back.”

  They found a Wendy’s, and the limo driver went through the drive-through window. “How he maneuvered that thing around those turns and through the lane and got the food, I’ll never know,” Micheel said, laughing. “I do think it was the best-tasting meal I’ve ever had.”

  There were still quite a few people in the hotel lobby when they got back, and everyone began to clap when the Micheels walked in. People in the bar heard what was going on and came pouring out to join in.