Slaying the Tiger

by Shane Ryan

  The restoration came at the head of a broader water conservation movement in golf, and the first big move that Crenshaw and Coore made was to get rid of the Bermuda rough altogether—forty acres of it, in total, along with hundreds of sprinkler heads. They let the “native area” take over where thick grass once soaked up endless gallons of water, and to make the course more difficult, they imported more than eighty thousand clumps of aristida stricta—the wire grass that was used to fill the areas outside the fairway. This move introduced an element of chance to a player’s round. Full recovery was now possible from the new native areas, far more so than it had ever been in the dense rough, but a ball could also land beneath one of the many clumps, and force a player to chip out sideways.

  Crenshaw and Coore used old archived aerial photographs, as well as an old mainline irrigation system, to restore some of the curves of the old course that had been straightened in the modern era. They widened fairways to reward players who drive down the proper side. They kept the greens’ domed shape that had developed over the years, choosing not to flatten them to ’36 standards and thus lower the difficulty, and they accentuated old bunkers, humps, and swales that had been forgotten with the narrowed fairways.

  Pinehurst no. 2 was never meant to be a so-called parkland course, with verdant expanses of greens. As Coore said, the course had its origins in the rough-and-tumble style native to the Sandhills, and if it didn’t represent that visual style today, right down to the plants lining the fairway, it would be a geographical impostor.

  The final product looked a little like a links course, but a lot more like something you’d see in the hot, desertlike climates of Australia. In what became their most controversial choice of all, Coore and Crenshaw allowed the climate to determine the color of the Bermuda grass. The dry, midsummer heat produced more than a few patches of brown and yellow—especially at the fairway edges, where the center row irrigation system distributed water unevenly. They liked the way the grass faded by the native areas, but they also knew how it would look on television, and they knew that the beauty of their restoration might be compromised with the flattening perspective of cameras. The owners and executives of the course knew it, too, and they took a big risk in order to produce one of the country’s most unique courses.

  —

  To those who understood and appreciated golf, the restoration of Pinehurst no. 2 was recognized as a progressive, sepia-toned masterpiece, and one that succeeded brilliantly in balancing the sport’s future with its historical roots. In December, the course won Golf Digest’s Green Star Award for Outstanding Environmental Practices, and in 2015, the resort estimated they would use fifteen million gallons of water on the course, compared to fifty-five million in 2009.

  Nevertheless, no good deed goes unpunished. For the legions of simpletons who were conditioned to expect nothing but miles and miles of generic parkland green, the course became a target for uninformed vitriol. It should come as little surprise that Donald Trump emerged as the ringleader of the buffoons and blowhards.

  “I’d bet the horrible look of Pinehurst translates in poor television ratings,” he tweeted. “That is not what golf is about!”

  Bubba Watson was the most critical of the players, calling the natural areas “weeds,” and expressing his disappointment with the difficulty of landing an approach on the greens. But even he admitted that the blind tee shots simply didn’t fit his style—Watson is a player who wins tournaments by bludgeoning long courses to death, and the events that require a great amount of finesse around the greens will always be difficult.

  Naysayers aside, Coore and Crenshaw earned heaps of praise for the job they’d done. Pinehurst had its character back, and though it didn’t look the same as most American courses, it only took a second glance to recognize the beauty in the difference.

  —

  A few interesting stories cropped up before Thursday’s opening round. For one thing, the USGA decided to get a bit cheeky with its pairings. They’ve been known to group golfers “thematically” over the first two days of U.S. Open competition, but this time they decided to really flex their creative muscles with one threesome.

  When Kevin Stadler, Brandon de Jonge, and Shane Lowry saw themselves in the same group, there was no mistaking the intent of those rapscallions behind the USGA curtains: They had created a fat group.

  The Golf Channel’s Jason Sobel got on the story first, and all three players had different reactions. Stadler didn’t appreciate the “five-year-old sense of humor,” but it wasn’t the first time it had happened to him, and he accepted the situation with as much good humor as he could muster. “It’s not like I don’t pretend that I’m not a fat-ass,” he told Sobel. Lowry, on the other hand, had been trying to get in shape for most of the year, and was seriously frustrated with the USGA, calling the move “a mockery” in a weekly column for the Irish Times. Brandon De Jonge completed the emotional triangle—he thought the whole thing was funny.

  Of course, the USGA didn’t cop to anything, but this was old hat for them. As Chris Chase pointed out in USA Today, they once put three women together at the women’s U.S. Open based on the fact that all three were in therapy. In a way, you had to admire them for staying true to character—if they were abundantly cruel in their course setup, why should the pairings be any different?

  That drama aside, some things stayed the same. Patrick Reed and Victor Dubuisson played practice rounds by themselves, questions were asked about Tiger’s absence, and the players predicted a collective catastrophe as the brutal North Carolina heat baked the course and hardened the greens. Martin Kaymer told reporters that he’d be happy with +8 for the week.

  The forecast called for rain on Wednesday night, but though storms raged across North Carolina, very little fell on Pinehurst. This had a paradoxical effect—in a rare act of mercy, the USGA took the unprecedented measure of actually making the course easier. The complaints had reached them—they watered the greens that night, and again before the first tee times on Thursday, and suddenly, Pinehurst no. 2 could be had.

  The whole organization must have looked on in abject horror as players actually scored on Thursday, and they were probably near suicidal that night, when the rain came and softened the course yet again for the second round on Friday. When the dust settled at day’s end, an ungodly thirteen players had finished under par, including McIlroy, Spieth, Dustin Johnson, Keegan Bradley, and Brendon Todd.

  Towering above them all, Martin Kaymer had ravaged the course in an unrepentant, one-man blitzkrieg. In two previous U.S. Opens at Pinehurst, no golfer had ever shot a 65. On Thursday and Friday, Martin Kaymer did it twice. He finished the second round at 10-under.

  That put him six shots ahead of Brendon Todd, his nearest competition, who thought he had played terrific golf. When he watched coverage Friday morning, though, he saw Martin Kaymer hit a shot that landed ten feet left of the pin on the par-3 17th, and was shocked to see that the German looked upset. “Those were my good shots this week,” he marveled later.

  —

  On Saturday, the crushing heat had returned just in time to coincide with the USGA’s remorseless campaign to avenge the results of the first two days. The course was naturally faster, and they augmented the challenge by pulling out their toughest pin locations yet. Nobody was sure how this would affect the huge gap at the top of the leaderboard. Did it make it harder for Kaymer, since he was more likely to shoot a huge number and come back to the field? Or did it essentially close the barn door after the thoroughbred horse had sprinted away, making it impossible for anyone to catch him?

  Of the sixty-seven golfers who made the cut, only two shot an under-par round on Saturday—Rickie Fowler and Erik Compton. Both posted 67s, which amounted to a heroic effort under the circumstances. It vaulted both men into a tie for second, but the bad news was that Kaymer, who wore the same pink shirt with blue trimming that had seen him through the final round at Sawgrass a month earlier, survived some early trouble and po
sted a 72. He had lost just two strokes, and maintained a five-shot lead with only Sunday’s round remaining. It never looked quite as easy as the first two days—on the fourth hole, he pulled his tee shot into the pine straw on the left, where it rested in a “wash out” area, which left his ball obstructed by a ridge of needles. When a rules official told him he was allowed to move “loose impediments” as long as his ball didn’t move, Kaymer stared at the man in disbelief.

  “It’s all loose,” he said. “How should I know?”

  “Be careful,” the man advised.

  Kaymer shook his head and turned to his caddie, Craig “Wee Man” Connelly. “If you have any idea how to play it, I’ll follow you.”

  Wisely, they took a drop. The ensuing bogey dropped him to -8, but a spectacular approach out of the waste area on the par-5 fifth gave him a five-foot eagle putt, which he canned to return to even on the day. On the sixth, Pinehurst struck again when he sent a birdie putt past the hole. It rolled and rolled, all the way down a slope and off the green. Kaymer just laughed, rolled his par putt up to the hole, and took a happy bogey. He dropped two more shots on 13 and 15—a drunkard screamed his name as he stood over his putt on 15, forcing him to retreat—but on 18, he scrounged a final shot back with a birdie.

  Kaymer had watched Bagger Vance the day before, and maybe that’s why he managed to keep his perspective even as the course threw its first curveballs of the week. For Brendon Todd, playing in the last group of a major for the first time, the pressure and the course proved to be a deadly combination—he spiraled down the leaderboard with a 79. Even his trusty putter abandoned him, and by day’s end, he had played his way out of contention. He chalked up the 2014 U.S. Open to a lesson learned.

  * * *

  “I like to be in control of things. It’s the way I think a lot of Germans are. But at the end of the day, you have to feel on the golf course. You have to create that feel and trust your skill and all the work. And today when I was standing on 18, that’s a tough tee shot. There’s pretty much no fairway. It’s very difficult to see any fairway from the back tee. So you stand there, and for me it was such an enjoyable shot, because I knew exactly where I wanted to aim and I thought, what a great position this is now. You are 7-under par at the U.S. Open, playing your third round…and it’s about that feel, that touch, that you play with your heart, that you can’t control too many things. That’s what I was trying to do the last three years. Now I just play.”

  —MARTIN KAYMER

  “He kind of killed the event in the first two days.”

  —HENRIK STENSON

  Kaymer told reporters on Saturday night that he wanted another tough track for Sunday’s round, thus resolving a media room debate. The bigwigs at NBC likely disagreed, as it was the network’s last year broadcasting the event after losing a bidding war the previous summer to FOX, who earned the rights in a twelve-year, billion-dollar deal. They wanted drama, and Kaymer was depriving them. The best thing that could happen would be for the German to falter early, while Fowler or Compton made a run to close the gap.

  Their margin for error was incredibly slim, and there was a definite feeling on Sunday morning that the only real battle would be for second place. Kaymer had already played his bad round, and that turned out not to be very bad at all—just two shots over par, and barely a dent in his nice lead.

  For Erik Compton, even second place would be quite the coup. His story, which spread like wildfire that week, was enough to make you cry. Not that he’d want the pity. Compton is perhaps the most resilient golfer in the world, judging by the fact that he’s still competing at the highest levels despite undergoing two transplants of the most vital organ of all. All other hardships pale—the man is on his third heart.

  Ian O’Connor, among others, chronicled the story on ESPN.com, and NBC ran a tearjerker of a feature during Sunday’s round. When he was only nine, Compton found out he had come down with viral cardiomyopathy. Doctors tried to pump him with steroids to keep him alive, and as a result, his face swelled up to twice its normal size, hair grew everywhere, and he became a social pariah. Deep inside, he knew he still had the body of an athlete, but he didn’t fit in with the other kids, couldn’t go back to school, and felt like a grotesque freak—a self-image that was confirmed when other kids mocked him relentlessly whenever he went out in public. It became clear that the steroids wouldn’t work, so at age twelve, he received a heart transplant from a girl who had been killed by a drunk driver.

  He became a great golfer, and as he made his way through Georgia and into the pros, he thought he would live forever on the new heart. It lasted just sixteen years. In 2007, he felt intense pain in his chest as he was driving home from his home course, and he knew exactly what it meant. He made a dash for the hospital, but deep down, he didn’t think he could make it. He phoned his mother on the way to say goodbye—a last goodbye—and continued to speed to the ER. He made it just in time, staggering in as he coughed up blood, and they saved him again. Seven months later, a twenty-six-year-old motorcyclist named Isaac Klosterman was hit by a Dodge truck on a Florida highway, and the crash killed him. His heart was transplanted into Compton’s body, and it was this heart that he carried to Pinehurst.

  —

  Rickie Fowler came out to the range at two thirty, dressed in orange and white, with a bright white hat, and Kaymer followed ten minutes later. The temperature was threatening ninety degrees, and the humidity struck just as hard. The German, despite the slick sheen of sweat on the back of his neck and arms, looked cool as can be. He told a TV crew that Sunday would be the “toughest day in my career,” and a comedian in the gallery shouted out, “World War Two!” Kaymer wore a white shirt with the usual logos—Mercedes, Hugo Boss, and SAP, a German software company, emblazoned on his hat. German legend Bernhard Langer had been texting him throughout the week, and though he knew the American fans might be slightly hostile on this final day, he seemed comfortable in his own skin.

  He made his way to the putting green, where an LPGA golfer named Jenny Shin, preparing for next week’s women’s Open, was using a putting device. Kaymer eyed it with interest, and Shin offered to sell it to him for a million dollars. With just the hint of a smile, Kaymer declined.

  The red rail cars of an Aberdeen Carolina & Western train slumbered in the background, and Butch Harmon stood watching Fowler hit shots on the range. Kaymer settled two spots down, with his dingy old club covers—a lion, and one that may have been an otter, or beaver, or gopher. He and Fowler never exchanged a word. Erik Compton came out wearing Georgia red, and gave Fowler a fist bump on his way. Kaymer left soon after, worked his way back to the giant scoreboard, and chipped up to the practice green.

  After an hour, Fowler left the range first—Kaymer always makes them wait. When they finally shook hands at the first tee, it was quick and formal. The air was already thick with dust from and pollen from the massive pines, and at 3:35, they stared down the first fairway, ready to battle each other and the elements.

  —

  Church bells rang as Kaymer struck his opening drive a day earlier, but all you could hear Sunday were dragonflies coasting lazily in the heat and the distant drone of NBC’s blimp as the German put his first shot on the fairway. As was to be expected, nobody in the early groups had made any kind of run at his lead. The course would play easier, but not much easier—there were certainly no 63s to be had. The field might have entertained delusions of catching him on Saturday, but now it was clear that Kaymer could only beat himself. The course could help in that regard, and so could the fact that he would be facing another Ryder Cup atmosphere; he had taken down one of America’s young darlings in Jordan Spieth at the Players Championship, and now he was drawn head-to-head with the other.

  The day would be defined by mistakes, as with most U.S. Opens, and Fowler made the first on his approach to the opening green, which came up well short and fell off the front slope. His chip was mediocre, but he holed the eight-footer for par to match Kaym
er’s easy two-putt. A reprieve, for now, and up ahead, news came slowly—Brandt Snedeker had bogeyed, Compton was still at -3, and neither Dustin Johnson nor Henrik Stenson were making any waves.

  On the long par-4 second, with its impossible angled green that only 30 percent of players were hitting in regulation, Kaymer found the waste area with his drive, then hit his approach over the green. Intimidated by the speed of Pinehurst’s greens, he grabbed the putter to avoid a hazardous chip, his least favorite shot. Soft egg or not, the shot set a pattern for the day—when in doubt, facing a hard green, Kaymer chose to putt. He executed the up-and-down, sinking a brutal twister for par, and Fowler missed his birdie attempt after an excellent approach and had to settle for his own par.

  The third hole, a drivable par 4 at 308 yards, demonstrated yet again that fate was smiling on Kaymer. A player aiming for the right side of the green would have to clear the bunker by a foot or less, and hope that it wouldn’t roll off the back of the slick green. The landing space was probably a yard or two wide at best, but from 290 yards away, Kaymer’s tee shot touched down right in its heart. That gave him two putts for birdie, and he gained a stroke as Fowler settled for par. Now, at -9, leading by six shots, Kaymer was in his strongest position yet.

  Fowler couldn’t afford to make even the slightest mistake, but he made a big one on the fourth. With his approach 227 yards away on Pinehurst’s toughest hole—and the longest par 4 in U.S. Open history—he pushed his shot toward a scoreboard, among a deep bed of pine needles. Fans had cheered when Kaymer’s drive went left, hoping for a Fowler surge, but now they grew silent. Kaymer’s approach, a lovely draw, hit the green and rolled off, but set up another long lag putt for par.

  For Rickie, the hole was just beginning—his pitch from the pine straw was disastrous, flying over the green and coming to rest behind a tree that blocked him from the green. He had to chip out sideways, and only then could he pitch up the slope and onto the green. By the time he finally reached the putting surface, he was staring down twenty feet for a double bogey.