Moment of Glory
Page 34
As wonderful as that feeling is for anyone who wins a major, especially when it’s a first-time win, there is no doubting the challenges that come with all those life changes. “I don’t think you change,” Curtis said. “But the way people look at you changes completely.”
Furyk came through it all relatively unscathed, though he clearly chafes at not having added a second major, one that would almost surely clinch a Hall of Fame spot for him someday. Weir has had low moments but found a way back to the point where he too believes he can win again on one of golf’s biggest stages.
Curtis and Micheel have bounced all over the map, wondering where their game got lost, finding it again, then seeing it slip away yet again. Even though they know that their victories weren’t flukes—because they went through it—such suggestions still sting.
“I still remember walking on the range just before I was supposed to play at the Western [Open] a few years back,” Micheel said. “A guy started yelling at me for an autograph. As I was walking, I said, like I always do [and as almost every player on tour does], ‘I can’t sign before I play; I’m happy to sign anything you’ve got afterward.’
“Most people understand when you say that. They know you’ve got a job to do and you’re a few minutes from your tee time and you’re trying to prepare. It’s a little like asking a pitcher warming up in the bullpen before a baseball game to stop and sign autographs.
“This guy just ripped into me. ‘Who do you think you are, Micheel? You got lucky one week in your life, and you’re too good to sign autographs?’ The guy got to me. I turned around and gave it back to him, which I shouldn’t have. Looking back now, I realize I let him get to me. But hearing that bothered me.” He smiled. “I guess you could say if his goal was to upset me, it worked.”
Regardless of all that, all four players love the memories of their Moment. They will happily take the extra pressure, the demands on their time, the criticisms, and the frustrations in return for the way they felt on that one Sunday afternoon in their lives when everything they had worked for since they were kids reached the climax they had often dreamed about.
Weir can still remember what it felt like to make the tying putt at 18 and the look in his wife’s eyes when he said, ‘I did it,’ moments later on Augusta’s 10th green. Furyk can still feel the chill that ran through him as the tears overcame him walking onto the 18th green at Olympia Fields, and how it felt to hug his father soon after that. Curtis still hears Andy Sutton’s voice saying, ‘Ben, you’ve won the Open,’ and remembers choking up while holding the Claret Jug and thinking about his grandfather.
And Micheel can still close his eyes and remember jogging up the hill to the 18th green at Oak Hill and seeing his golf ball sitting two inches from the flagstick.
“I can still hear the cheers ringing in my ears,” he said, a smile creasing his face more than six years after it happened. “When you play golf all your life, you fantasize that moment in one form or another. You dream it, you hope for it, you act it out, but you know it may never happen.
“That day, it happened for me. I still get chills whenever I think about it. I doubt, regardless of what happens the rest of my career and the rest of my life, that will ever change.”
Acknowledgments
THERE HAVE BEEN MOMENTS since I first began this book two years ago when I thought I would never finish.
In the summer of 2008 when I thought I was getting close to finishing the reporting, I got a call from Rocco Mediate, asking if I’d like to work with him on a book detailing his remarkable U.S. Open experience at Torrey Pines a few weeks earlier. I couldn’t resist: Rocco was a friend, a good story, and a good storyteller. I said yes, did the book, and have no regrets. It landed on the New York Times bestseller list, which proves I was right: Rocco was a good story and a good storyteller.
I explained to the players I had been working with on Moment of Glory the reason for the delay, and they were all extremely patient. Not that the publication of this book was going to change their lives—winning a major championship or just missing winning one does that for you—but because they had already put in a good deal of time and effort into helping me with the book and were entitled to see it come to fruition.
Delay number two came late last June when I went to a doctor for a routine stress test and ended up undergoing septuple bypass surgery four days later. (Septuple is seven for those of you keeping score at home.) I think it’s fair to say there is no such thing as good timing for something like that—although the fact that it probably saved my life would weigh in its favor—but this was especially inauspicious.
The PGA Tour was coming to Washington the same week I was to have the surgery, meaning I would have been able to wrap up the research with my final round of interviews without leaving my ZIP code. Instead, once I had recovered from the surgery, I had to go to Akron, Greensboro, and Atlanta to wrap up the research. Not to mention the fact that I wasn’t exactly productive in the weeks after the surgery. (I did get to watch a lot of golf. I’m willing to bet serious money that I’m in a very small handful of people who watched every single minute of the John Deere Classic on TV this past July.)
I say all that by way of thanking everyone who helped me with the book for their extraordinary patience as I waded my way through to the finish line. The number of times I had to go back to Mike Weir, Jim Furyk, Ben Curtis, and Shaun Micheel to catch up and finish up is proof of what good guys they are. I’m also grateful to their wives; Bricia Weir, Tabitha Furyk, Candace Curtis, and Stephanie Micheel were also extremely helpful.
Thanks also to the runners-up, for whom this subject wasn’t nearly as enjoyable to talk about, I’m sure. Stephen Leaney and Chad Campbell talked at length and in detail about their experience. As is apparent in the book, it was far more difficult for Len Mattiace and Thomas Bjorn. Len and I spent a good deal of time talking about why it was so difficult for him to relive the 2003 Masters. I’m grateful to him for hearing me out and giving me all he could and also to his wife, Kristen, for spending time with me. Thomas Bjorn simply didn’t want to talk about or, I’m guessing, even think about Royal St. George’s. I offered to talk by phone if that would be easier, or even e-mail. He politely refused. I was disappointed, but I certainly understand.
IT TAKES MANY, MANY people who play golf and work in golf to get me through a book like this. For this book I’m grateful to Davis Love III, Zach Johnson, Billy Andrade, Paul Goydos, Mike Furyk, Brennan Little, Andy Sutton, and Mike Cowen. Special thanks to Butch Harmon for his willingness to talk about his split with Tiger Woods—not one of his fondest memories, I’m sure. The number of people who helped me with much-needed background information, not to mention photos, at all of golf’s various governing bodies is almost uncountable, but I’ll give it a shot. At Augusta: Glenn Greenspan and his very young but very helpful successor, Steve Ethun. At the USGA: David Fay, Mike Butz, Mike Davis, Mary Lopuszynski, Craig Smith, David Fanucchi, and Peter Kowalski. At the European PGA Tour: Mitchell Platts and Kate Wright. At the PGA of America: Joe Steranka, the groovy Julius Mason, and Bob Denney. At the PGA Tour: Tim Finchem, Marty Caffey, Dave Lancer, Denise Taylor, Todd Budnick, James Cramer, John Bush, Joel Schuchmann, Chris Reimer, and Guy Scheipers.
Others connected to the tour who always deserve thanks: the one and only Henry Hughes and also the one and only Sid Wilson.
And, as always, the rules guys: Mark Russell (not to mention Laura and Alex), Jon Brendle, Slugger White, Steve Rintoul, and Mike Shea.
If the subjects of this book were patient, then what about my editor and my agent? Michael Pietsch at Little, Brown and Company is blessed with great patience, which is needed to be my editor. Esther Newberg, my agent for twenty-six books now, has no patience at all but somehow puts up with me. Thanks, as always, to their staffs: Vanessa Kehren, Eve Rabinovits, Heather Fain, Heather Rizzo, Marlena Bittner, Katherine Molina (emeritus), and Holly Wilkinson (always emeritus) at Little, Brown; and Kari Stuart, John Delaney, and Liz F
arrell at ICM.
Anyone who reads my books may well know the following names by heart: Keith and Barbie Drum; Jackson Diehl and Jean Halperin; Ed and Lois Brennan; David and Linda Maraniss; Lexie Verdon and Steve Barr; Jill and Holland Mickle; Bill and Jane Brill; Terry and Patti Hanson; blogmaster David Stewart; Bob and Anne DeStefano; Mary Carillo; Bud Collins and Anita Claussen; Doug and Beth Doughty; David Teel; Stan Kasten, John Dever, Eric Spitz (yes, Eric), Gary Cohen, Beth (Shumway) Brown; Beth Sherry-Downes; Bob Socci; Pete Van Poppel; Omar Nelson; Frank DaVinney; Chet Gladchuk; Eric Ruden; Scott Strasemeier; Billy Stone; Mike Werteen; Chris Day; Chris Knocke; Andrew Thompson; Phil Hoffmann; Joe Speed; Jack Hecker; Steve (Moose) Stirling; Bob Beretta; Jim and Tiffany Cantelupe; Derek and Christina Klein; Anthony and Kristen Noto; Pete Teeley; Bob Zurfluh; Vivian Thompson; Phil Hochberg; Al Hunt; Wayne Zell; Mike and David Sanders; Bob Whitmore; Tony Kornheiser; Mike Wilbon; Mark Maske; Ken Denlinger; Matt Rennie; Matt Vita; Jon DeNunzio; Kathy Orton; Camille Powell; Dan Steinberg; Chris Ryan; Harry Kantarian; Jim Rome; Travis Rodgers; Jason Stewart; Mike Purkey; Bob Edwards; Tom and Jane Goldman; Jake Pleet; Mike Gastineau; Mary Bromley; Kenny and Christina Lewis; Dick Hoops and Joanie (Mrs. Hoops) Weiss; Jim O’Connell; Bob and Eileen Ryan; Frank Hannigan; Jerry Tarde; Mike O’Malley; Larry Dorman; Jeff D’Alessio; Marsha Edwards; Jay and Natalie Edwards; Len and Gwyn Edwards-Dieterle; Chris Edwards and John Cutcher; Aunt Joan; and Neil Oxman, Bill Leahey, Andy North, Steve Bisciotti, Kevin Byrne, Dick Cass, Mike Muehr, Martha Brendle, Joe Durant, Gary (Grits) Crandall, Drew Miceli, Bob Low, Steve Flesch, Brian Henninger, and Tom and Hilary Watson.
Thanks also to Tom Stathakes, for taking a chance on a somewhat out-of-the-box writer to do Golf Channel commentaries, and to all those I worked with at TGC this year: Joe Riley, Kristi Setaro, Scott Rude, and Lori Sullivan. Thanks also to Joe Yasharoff, Larry Duvall, and Manda Gross at Comcast, D.C.
More of the usual suspects. Basketball people: Gary Williams, Mike Krzyzewski, Rick Barnes, Roy Williams, Brad and Seth Greenberg, Mike Brey, Jeff Jones, Billy Lange, Jim Crews, Karl Hobbs, Fran Dunphy, Jim Calhoun, Jim Boeheim (the klutz), Billy Donovan, Larry Shyatt, Tom Brennan, Tommy Amaker, Dave Odom, Jim Larranaga, Mack McCarthy, Pat Flannery, Emmette Davis, Ralph Willard, Tim Frank, and David Stern, our differences on the WNBA notwithstanding. Frank Sullivan always deserves his own sentence.
As you get older, you have more doctors in your life. Thanks as always to the orthopods: Eddie McDevitt, Bob Arciero, Dean Taylor, and Gus Mazzocca, and to the world’s best trainer (ask the kids at Army), Tim Kelly. Thanks also to my doctors: Joe Vassallo, for insisting I get a stress test, and Steve Boyce, who managed to rip me open and put me back together again. “The good news for you,” he told me, “is I do 500 of these a year.” To which I replied, “I’m not all that concerned about the other 499.”
Howard Garfinkel turned eighty this summer; may he be around to smoke and give me a hard time for at least another eighty years. Tom Konchalski is ageless and will always be the only honest man in the gym.
The swimmers who will inspire my comeback in 2010: Jeff Roddin (the newlywed), Jason Crist, Clay F. Britt (who broke the world record this past year by retiring for the hundredth time), Wally Dicks, Mark Pugliese, Paul Doremus, Danny Pick (who can really cook), Erik (Dr. Post) Osborne, John Craig, Doug Chestnut, Peter Ward, Penn Bates, Carole Kammel, Margot Pettijohn, Tom Denes, A. J. Block, Mary Dowling, and the still-missed Mike Fell.
The China Doll/Shanghai Village Gang: Aubre Jones, Rob Ades, Jack Kvancz, Joe McKeown (shivering in Chicago), Bob Campbell (MLB security honcho), Pete Dowling, Chris Wallace (who has moved so far right, he may be left soon), Arnie (the Horse) Heft, Stanley Copeland, Reid Collins, Harry Huang, George (sigh) Solomon, Ric McPherson, Geoff Kaplan, Jeff Gemunder, Joe Greenberg, and Murray Lieberman, who gets extra kudos for sending me to Dr. Vassallo when my doctor retired a couple of years back. Red, Zang, and Hymie will always be there in spirit.
The Rio Gang: Tate Armstrong, Mark Alarie, Clay (LB) Buckley, and Terry Chili.
The Feinstein advisory board: Drummer, Frank Mastrandrea, Wes Seeley, Dave Kindred, and Brill, who has already booked a plane ticket for Duke’s next Bowl appearance.
And of course: the world’s two best kids (not that I’m biased), Danny and Brigid; Bobby, Jennifer, Matthew, and Brian; Margaret, David, Ethan, and Ben; Marlynn and Cheryl; and last—but certainly not least—my wife, Christine.
The past couple of years have often been challenging, to put it mildly. I would not be here—literally or figuratively—without all of the people named above. It takes a village. At the very least.
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Mike Weir’s finest hour: receiving the green jacket on the Augusta National putting green from Tiger Woods. (Golf Digest)
Even seven years later, it is still difficult for Len Mattiace to talk about his most brilliant day ever on a golf course. (Stan Badz/PGA Tour)
Jim Furyk’s unorthodox swing has produced remarkable results through the years. (Copyright USGA Museum/John Mummert)
Furyk with the U.S. Open trophy he had to get engraved. (Copyright USGA Museum/John Mummert)
Jim and Tabitha Furyk, Tabitha’s eyes still hidden behind sunglasses. (Copyright USGA Museum/Steven Gibbons)
For one day, the 2003 U.S. Open belonged to Tom Watson and his caddy, Bruce Edwards. (Copyright USGA Museum/John Mummert)
Stephen Leaney, “the unknown Aussie,” kept it close at Olympia Fields on Sunday while everyone else faded. (Copyright USGA Museum/John Mummert)
Tiger Woods sought a new swing in 2003. It wasn’t until 2005 that he again crossed the bridge to dominance. (Copyright USGA Museum/John Mummert)
Ben Curtis with the Claret Jug, the trophy that put him in the same sentence with Francis Ouimet. (Golf Digest)
Years later, Thomas Bjorn can’t bring himself to discuss what happened in the bunker at number 16 on the last day of the 2003 Open Championship. (Golf Digest)
Davis Love III had a chance to win after witnessing Bjorn’s disaster but still couldn’t believe what he had seen. (Copyright USGA Museum/Steven Gibbons)
Shaun Micheel with the Wanamaker Trophy. Some still call his PGA Championship win at Oak Hill a fluke, even though he hit one of the gre
at shots in golf history to clinch the victory. (Copyright The PGA of America. All rights reserved.)
Contents
Front Cover Image
Welcome
Dedication
INTRODUCTION
1 One Moment in Time
2 Tiger versus the Field
3 The Little Lefty Who Could
4 Climbing the Mountain
5 Battle Royal
6 A Life-Changing Moment
7 Best Player to Have Never Won
8 The Kid from Nowhere
9 Always on Father’s Day
10 Make Sure to Get the Trophy Engraved
11 From Nowhere to St. George’s
12 Miracle at St. George’s
13 Glory’s Last Shot
14 Moving On Up… to a Major
15 The Master of Oak Hill
16 Life Begins Anew
17 Still Champions
18 Dealing with It All
19 Whatever Happened To…?
20 What Comes Next?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Photo Insert
About the Author
Also by John Feinstein
Praise for John Feinstein’s Moment of Glory
Copyright
JOHN FEINSTEIN is the bestselling author of Are You Kidding Me? (with Rocco Mediate), Living on the Black, Tales from Q School, Last Dance, Next Man Up, Let Me Tell You a Story (with Red Auerbach), Caddy for Life, Open, The Punch, The Last Amateurs, The Majors, A March to Madness, A Civil War, A Good Walk Spoiled, A Season on the Brink, A Season Inside, Forever’s Team, Play Ball, Hard Courts, and four sports mystery novels for young readers. He writes for the Washington Post, Washingtonpost.com, the Sporting News, and Golf Digest, and is a regular commentator on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition. For more information about John Feinstein, please visit www.feinsteinonthebrink.com.