“I just couldn’t get comfortable over it,” Furyk said later. “I didn’t feel as if I had the line. I kept looking at it, trying to be absolutely sure I had it right and never felt as if I did. As it turns out, I was right. I never did figure it out.”
The putt slid past the hole, and Furyk could do nothing but watch in frustration while Colin Montgomerie and Phil Mickelson both imploded with double bogeys on the 18th hole, leaving Ogilvy one shot ahead of all three of them. The difference, as it turned out, was Ogilvy’s ability to par the final hole.
A year later, at Oakmont, Furyk was again in position to win. He walked onto the 17th tee tied for the lead with Angel Cabrera, one shot ahead of Tiger Woods. Two pars would almost certainly get him into a playoff. But there was no scoreboard on the 17th tee, and Furyk thought he was a shot behind Cabrera. He knew his best birdie chance was the short par-four 17th, so he pulled his driver and tried to reach the green. The ball sailed left into a bunker, leaving Furyk with a nearly impossible shot. He ended up making bogey and again missed playing off by one shot, finishing in a tie for second with Woods, behind Cabrera.
“I can honestly say that if I hadn’t won in ’03, those two losses would have been completely devastating,” Furyk said. “They still hurt because you only get so many chances to win majors in your career, but they didn’t hurt quite as much because when I walked into my house, the ’03 trophy [Furyk did have a replica made after finishing his engraving chores] was still there. I would like to win again before I’m done, but it does take some pressure off knowing they can’t take that one away, regardless of what I do or don’t do in the future.”
The other player in the group who had a serious chance to win a major was Chad Campbell. Undeterred by his loss to Micheel at Oak Hill, Campbell had gone on to win his first PGA Tour event later that year. The Tour Championship was a good tournament to win, not a major but an impressive victory over an elite field nonetheless. He won again (Bay Hill) in 2004 and added victories in 2006 and 2007. In his quiet way, he had become one of the tour’s better players.
He even did a commercial that emphasized his quiet nature. In it, Campbell looks into the camera and says, “They say if you’re good, you don’t need to talk about it.” After a pause and a smile he adds, “Maybe that’s why I don’t talk that much.”
Still, the major that his fellow players had predicted for him in 2003 had eluded him. He led the Masters after 36 holes in 2006, then finished tied for third, as Phil Mickelson (who had finally won his first major in ’04 at Augusta) blew everyone away on Sunday to win his second green jacket.
Three years later, Campbell had an even better chance at the Masters. He opened the tournament with a 65 to take the lead and still had the lead at nine-under-par 135 after 36 holes. He dropped back to third after 54 holes but trailed the leaders—Cabrera, who had been largely invisible since his win at the ’07 Open, and Kenny Perry—by just two shots.
After 16 holes on Sunday, it was Perry’s tournament to win. He led both Cabrera and Campbell (who had shot a final-round 69) by two shots. But he made nervous bogeys on 17 and 18 to fall into a three-way tie with Cabrera and Campbell.
In a rare concession to television, the Masters had slightly altered its playoff format beginning in 2005. Instead of going to the tenth tee—the way Weir and Mattiace had in 2003—the players returned to the 18th tee. TV has always preferred an 18th-hole finish to tournaments, and some regular tour events just keep sending the players back to replay the 18th until someone wins. The Lords of Augusta wouldn’t go quite that far. They started the playoff on the 18th, but if it didn’t end there, the players then moved over to the 10th tee.
Playing the 18th, Cabrera pushed his drive into the trees that had brought Len Mattiace grief six years earlier; like Mattiace, he had no choice but to punch out. Perry found the fairway on the left side, but his second shot landed in the left bunker. Campbell, having driven the ball perfectly down the right side, appeared to have a clear advantage as he stood over a seven-iron for his second shot. But his nerves came into play, the ball fading into the right bunker.
With no one on the green in regulation, Cabrera hit a wedge to six feet. Perry, who hadn’t hit a green since birdieing the 16th in regulation, hit a perfect bunker shot to inside a foot, giving him a kick-in for par. Campbell hit a good bunker shot too, leaving himself four feet. Cabrera made his par putt, and Campbell then had to make his par putt to stay alive. He missed.
Cabrera and Perry moved onto the 10th, where Perry hit his second shot to almost the same spot Mattiace had hit his second shot three years earlier, leaving him with a similarly almost impossible up and down. When he bogeyed the hole and Cabrera parred it, Cabrera had his second major title.
By then, Campbell was wrapping up his postround conversation with the media. “In a way, this one hurts more than the PGA,” he said. “At least at the PGA I played the 18th hole well, gave myself a shot at a birdie. Shaun [Micheel] just hit a great shot there. Here, I feel like I did it to myself. It’s disappointing.”
Other than Furyk, Micheel had come closest to a repeat major victory, finishing second at the PGA at Medinah in 2006, although he never had a real chance to win. Someone named Woods beat him by five shots and beat everyone else by more than that.
“I was the winner in the mortal division that week,” Micheel said, laughing. “I really felt as if I played just about as well as I did at Oak Hill. I made the exact same number of birdies [21]. It was just that Tiger was being Tiger that week. When he plays like that, no one beats him. It reminded me that I was fortunate that he was a nonfactor in ’03 when he was going through his swing change.”
Woods had failed to win a major in 2004 too, stretching his winless streak to ten by the end of that year. If anything, he played worse in 2004 than he had in 2003. He won only one tournament (the match play) and, for the first time since 1998, he didn’t win the Player of the Year title; Vijay Singh did. The major champions in ’04 were a bit more glamorous than in ’03: Mickelson finally had his breakthrough at the Masters (catching Ernie Els down the stretch); Retief Goosen won his second U.S. Open title in four years at Shinnecock, outdueling Mickelson down the stretch; Todd Hamilton, who did fit the unknown mold, beat Els in a playoff at the British Open; and Singh won his third major title, winning a playoff from Justin Leonard and Chris DiMarco to take the PGA.
Woods started to become Woods again when he beat DiMarco (a hard-luck player in majors if there has ever been one) in the first Masters playoff that began at number 18 (Woods won it with a birdie after bogeying the hole minutes earlier). He then went on to win five of the next thirteen majors to up his total to fourteen prior to undergoing knee surgery in 2008. He also finished second in four majors during that stretch. That meant that after going zero for ten from the middle of 2002 through the end of 2004, with one second-place finish (at the ’02 PGA before he really began overhauling his swing), Woods went six for fourteen and was in the top two ten times in fourteen majors. His other four finishes were a tie for fourth at the ’05 PGA, a tie for third at the ’06 Masters, a missed cut at the U.S. Open in ’06 (his first tournament back after his father’s death), and a tie for 12th at the ’07 British Open.
That consistency meant one thing: players constantly had to be looking over their shoulders for Woods, and it had not been that way in ’03 and ’04. “It was definitely a period in time when the rest of us had an opportunity,” Mike Weir said, smiling. “I’m just happy when I had the chance, I was able to take it. Because there’s no guarantee for any of us that a chance like that is going to come again.”
Which is why looking back on 2003 is so difficult for the four runners-up: Mattiace, Leaney, Bjorn, and Campbell. Of the four, the only one still playing at a consistently high level is Campbell. The other three are still searching for the magic, or near magic, that each found six years ago. It is easier said than done.
“When you know you’ve been good enough to get to that level, it’s much toughe
r to accept not being there,” Mattiace said quietly one day in 2009. “That’s why, even though it’s been six years, it’s still tough for me to talk about Augusta. In a lot of ways, it was the absolute highlight of my golf career. But bringing back the memories, conjuring that Sunday up again in my mind, is very, very hard.”
He paused and looked off into the distance. “It’s just all so… personal,” he finally said. “Maybe someday, it won’t feel quite like that.”
Maybe someday. But not quite yet.
18
Dealing with It All
AS 2004 BEGAN, FEW golfers in the world felt better about their games than Mike Weir did. He’d had a remarkable 2003 and would arrive at Augusta in April as the defending champion, a role he cherished. He was thirty-three and, he believed, starting into the peak years of his career.
After the Masters victory and his huge year financially—on and off the golf course—he and Bricia talked about building a new house or buying one. But they liked where they were, so instead they settled for some renovations to give themselves a little more space. Mike had passed up a number of off-season opportunities that would have involved going overseas to play for big appearance fees.
“I was already making a lot of money,” he said. “I just didn’t see any reason to chase anymore, especially when it meant being away from my family. I didn’t make any real lifestyle changes other than to fly privately more often. Usually when I did that, it was to give myself extra time with the kids—either leaving a little bit later for a tournament or trying to get home Sunday night when I couldn’t do it flying commercially. I felt like I had things pretty well under control, to tell you the truth.”
The year began well. After not playing up to his expectations in his first two tournaments—finishing tied for only 41st in defense of his title at the Bob Hope—Weir got on a roll not unlike the one he had been on for most of ’03. He finished tied for fifth in Phoenix, tied for fourth at Pebble Beach, and then successfully defended the title he had won a year earlier in Los Angeles.
But, as Greg Norman often says, there’s a reason why golf is a four-letter word. When the tour shifted from the West Coast to the East Coast, Weir felt as if he had left his swing and his putting stroke out West. He missed the cut at the Players Championship and then finished tied for 45th in Atlanta, the week before the Masters.
“I didn’t arrive in Augusta brimming with confidence,” Weir said. “I felt like I needed to find something in my swing before Thursday. I was defending my title, and I wanted to play well. So, I did what I normally do when I feel that way: I went to the range and worked.”
He was out there late Tuesday afternoon, hitting ball after ball, while caddy Brennan Little and teacher Mike Wilson watched. “I completely lost track of the time,” Weir said. “All of a sudden, I noticed the range was getting pretty empty, and I looked at my watch and it was 6:30. I thought ‘Oh my God. I’m hosting the Champions Dinner in thirty minutes, and I’m pouring sweat.’
“I ran into the clubhouse and up to the champions locker room. I got out of my clothes and headed into the shower. There was just one problem: there’s only one shower up there, and Tom Watson was in it. Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus were sitting there waiting their turn. I couldn’t exactly ask those guys to let me cut in front of them.”
Weir managed to get showered and to the dinner just in time to greet his guests. It was one of the more memorable nights of his life. “Just to look around that room and see all those guys and realize I was part of their club now and for the rest of my life, it gave me chills,” he said. “The storytelling that goes on in there is unbelievable.
“Sam Snead had died two years earlier, so a lot of the guys told some of the stories that Sam would always tell. They were priceless—also not repeatable in polite company.”
As it turned out, the dinner was the highlight of the week for Weir. He continued to fight his swing on Thursday and shot 79–71 to miss the cut by one shot. “It was a huge letdown,” he said. “It wasn’t as if I went in there thinking, ‘I’m going to win this thing again,’ especially given that I didn’t feel all that good about my game at that moment. I was just terrible on Thursday. I was tight, nervous, as if I had to prove myself somehow. Friday I finally loosened up and played better, but it was too little, too late. To not play the weekend hurt. Plus, I had to stick around until Sunday to present the green jacket. When you miss a cut, any cut, the last thing you want to do is hang around while everyone else is playing and you’re not.”
He didn’t let up on his search for his swing or his putting stroke after Augusta, and, as always seemed to be the case, he eventually found what he was looking for. He played well at the U.S. Open at Shinnecock, finishing tied for fourth, and had a solid British Open at Troon, finishing tied for ninth. That gave him five top-10 finishes in seven majors, a good run for any player not named Tiger Woods.
Through it all, Weir was trying to adapt to his new life as a Masters champion. Even though he had no trouble saying no to overseas temptations, Weir had to say yes to extra days on the road his sponsors wanted to add to his schedule, because he was now being paid a lot more money by them than in the past.
“A lot of little things added up fast,” he said. “There were extra days for the sponsors, which meant more days away from home, and sometimes meant that my schedule on a playing week was more hectic. If I can plan ahead, I’m fine. But I was getting a lot of ‘Mike, have you got five minutes,’ when I was on the range. You don’t want to say no to guys and act like you’re big-timing them, especially guys you know, but it’s never five minutes.
“When I got to the British Open, someone told me that a lot of the guys in the Canadian media, who had covered me long before I won the Masters, were upset because they thought I was blowing them off. I talked to all of them, and they said I hadn’t been returning phone messages that they had left at my office.
“I’m not sure what was happening, whether the people who represented me just started deciding on their own what messages to pass on and what messages not to pass on, but I hadn’t been getting messages. I was upset about it, and I told the guys I would get it straightened out, which I did. But I’m sure they thought I was the bad guy in all of it, and it upset me, because I’d always had a very good relationship with all of them.”
Six weeks after the British, Weir had a chance to win the tournament that, next to the four majors, is the one he would most like to win: the Canadian Open. “It’s definitely my fifth major,” he said. “Every year up there, I feel tremendous pressure, because I know how badly people want me to win.”
Bricia Weir could feel her husband’s tension too. “On the one hand, it’s really wonderful that people up there care so much about how he plays and enjoy his successes,” she said. “On the other hand, I know he feels like he’s carrying the hopes of the entire country, because there are times when that’s exactly how it feels.
“When we’re home in Salt Lake, Mike gets recognized some of the time when we’re out. But in Canada, it seems as if everyone recognizes him. When he’s up there, for him it’s a lot like it must be like for Tiger everywhere. It’s as if he’s Mr. Canada.”
Even when Weir was not playing, there were moments that made Bricia nervous. One afternoon when Mike was home, someone rang the doorbell. Living in a gated community, the Weirs didn’t often have unexpected guests. Mike answered the door, and standing there was a man with a Masters flag in his hand, wanting Mike to sign it for him.
“He was flying through Salt Lake and had a three-hour layover,” Bricia said. “He knew Mike wasn’t playing that week, and he figured out where we lived, got someone to get him through the gate, and then asked people which house was ours. He was a perfectly nice guy, but it was kind of weird. It bothered me that it was that easy for someone to find our front door like that.”
Weir took off the week prior to Canada in 2004 to go home and work with Wilson on his swing and his short game. Although he had played
pretty well in the important summer events, he still wasn’t thrilled with his swing. He arrived in Toronto feeling better about it and proceeded to play better than he ever had before in his “home” event.
By the time Sunday rolled around, Weir found himself battling Vijay Singh for the lead. The crowds were massive and roared every time Weir took the club back. “It was amazing,” he said. “They just so wanted to see a Canadian win up there.”
It had been fifty years since Pat Fletcher had won the tournament, and no Canadian had won since then. Even George Knudson, arguably the best player Canada had produced prior to Weir, never won in his home country. Now, with Weir battling Singh, the tension grew at every hole.
When Weir birdied the eighth hole to take a one-shot lead, the place was going crazy. Moments later, as Weir walked down the path from the ninth green to the tenth tee, an overzealous fan reached out to give his shoulder a good-luck squeeze and caught him just as he had gone past.
“The security guys were in front and in back of me,” Weir said. “We needed a lot of security to get from the greens to the tees. This guy was to the side of me, and he reached across the ropes and, trying to grab my shoulder, kind of pulled me backward. I turned to try to get loose, and my spikes caught. I felt this shooting pain in my shoulder, but I just kept going.
“I didn’t feel much pain after that first moment. I had a lot of adrenaline going, so I really didn’t think much about it other than to wonder what in the world the guy was thinking doing something like that. It was annoying but nothing more.”
Weir played well on the back nine and had a great chance to win. He three-putted the 16th hole after trying too hard to make a 15-foot downhill birdie putt but still had a one-shot lead coming to 18. He needed to make a six-foot par putt to win—and missed it by an inch. “That one hurt because I thought I’d hit a perfect putt,” Weir said. “When it came off the putter, I thought I’d won. It didn’t feel a lot different than the one I made at 18 at Augusta—except it didn’t go in.”
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