The U.S. Open : Zoeller Is Just Happy to Be Back

Fuzzy Zoeller, bubbling and beaming as if he had just won the United States Open, wanted to demonstrate the severity of the greens at Oakland Hills Country Club, where he will open defense of his Open championship today.

He dropped a ball about eight feet from the hole, then turned his back on the cup and tapped the ball in the opposite direction. It rolled slowly for a couple of feet, then made a U-turn and began an agonizingly slow trip toward the cup. It missed--and rolled three feet farther down the slope.

“How do you like that, fellows?” he beamed to a group of onlookers. “I call that an awesome undulation. These greens are the most severe I’ve ever seen. Not the fastest, but the most difficult to control.”

It wasn’t a complaint, just an observation. Zoeller doesn’t complain. He’s just happy to be here, in a wooded suburb west of Detroit, where he can play golf.

Not too long ago, the happy-go-lucky warrior from New Albany, Ind., was afraid he wouldn’t be able to defend the crown he won so brilliantly last year at Winged Foot in Mamaroneck, N.Y., in a playoff with Australian Greg Norman. Every time he took a step, a sharp pain shot through his hip.

Three months after winning at Winged Foot, Zoeller had back surgery for a ruptured spinal disc. When he had recuperated, he celebrated by winning the Bay Hill Classic last March. It was so much fun that Fuzzy played five weeks in a row--enough to aggravate a nerve in his hip.

“I played too much, no doubt about it,” Fuzzy said. “I should have known better. I felt the tension building up in the nerve, but I was having too much fun to stop. Since La Costa (in the Tournament of Champions), it has hurt every day. There have been days when I didn’t think I’d be able to tee it up this week.”

Twisting and turning while swinging a golf club is no bother to Zoeller. It is the walking, especially uphill, that is painful.

“I can still swing. I haven’t lost any distance off the tee,” said Zoeller, one of golf’s longest hitter. “The only time it affects my swing is on the green. Putting is difficult because if my hip hurts, I stand up straighter and I’m not used to that. On these greens, though, I don’t know if anything would help me.”

Tom Watson, who was honored Wednesday night as player of the year for the sixth time by the Golf Writers Assn. of America, said that some of the greens were more suitable for a billiard player than a golfer.

“If you want any chance at all of getting close enough to the hole to make a putt, you’ve got to bank your iron shots off the humps in the green,” Watson said.

Jack Nicklaus has also found the greens puzzling. Nicklaus, seeking a record fifth Open championship at age 45, is the only player in the field of 156 who played here in 1961, the last time the Open was played at Oakland Hills.

“That makes me feel old,” Nicklaus said.

He has been here for more than a week--longer than any other player--looking for the fountain of youth. But all the long drives and crisp iron shots that he has hit have been negated by the strange roll of his ball on the putting surfaces.

“How can you get any feel for greens when you’re putting off the sides of hills?” he asked. “I had some six-foot putts with a three-foot break.”

The same question has been asked since 1918, when Oakland Hills opened as a playground for Detroit’s automobile magnates.

Walter Hagen probably asked it first. The Haig was Oakland Hills’ first professional and he brought the club its first national championship when he won the 1919 Open by beating Mike Brady in a playoff. Hagen was so impressed with Brady that he recommended him as his own successor when he tired of life as a club pro.

This is the course’s 11th major championship and its fifth U. S. Open.

Cyril Walker, a slender Englishman, beat Bobby Jones by three shots in 1924. Ralph Guldahl won the first of his two successive Open championships in 1937 when he overhauled Sam Snead.

It was in 1951, however, that Oakland Hills gained its well deserved reputation as The Monster.

Ben Hogan, after shooting a final-round 67, often called one of golf’s greatest rounds, said: “I haven’t played all the courses in the world, but I don’t want to . . . if there are any that are tougher than this one. But I’m glad that I brought this course, this monster, to its knees.”

Gene Littler won the last Open here when he finished with a 68 and beat Doug Sanders by a shot in 1961. The Monster had prevailed, however. Littler was one over par for the 72 holes.

Watson says the Monster label still fits today.

“Oakland Hills is the toughest course in the U. S. Open rotation,” said Watson, whose dramatic chip shot on the 71st hole at Pebble Beach deprived Nicklaus of his fifth Open title in 1982. “It is the toughest course we will play all year. There’s no question about it. I don’t expect anyone to be under par this week.”

Zoeller, ever the optimist, doesn’t see it as that difficult.

“I think we’ll see the winner four or five under par,” he said. “The greens were just as severe when David (Graham) made all those putts from one side of the green to another in the (1979) PGA, and he finished eight under.

“I think there are 50 guys here who could be the winner, and he’ll be the one who can find the hole with his putter.”

Zoeller, despite having missed the cut in two of the three tournaments he has entered since the Tournament of Champions, lists himself among the 50. If he were to repeat as champion, Zoeller would be the first since Hogan in 1951. Coincidentally, it was here at Oakland Hills that Hogan repeated.

“If I’m able to stand on the first tee tomorrow, I figure I’ll have a hell of a chance to defend,” Zoeller said. “I’m a streaky player and I got myself in the middle of one last year. Who knows, maybe I’ll start one tomorrow.

“But if I don’t, I’ve still got one to remember. I can’t tell you how I feel after winning at Winged Foot. Every place I go, as long as I live, I’ll be an Open champion. No one can take that away from me, and that means a lot.

“It was a great honor to know I beat the best in the world at what they do best on a very good course.”

Zoeller said there was no comparison between winning the Open and the Masters, which he won--also in a playoff--in 1979.

“The Open is just what is says. It’s open to everybody, amateur and professional. Because of that, it is much more important to me to be the Open champion than it was to win the Masters.”

Fuzzy’s only worry, he said, is the possibility of hearing from his doctor that he can never play golf again.

“If the doc told me to quit tomorrow, I’d quit. I know I’d miss it something terrible, but I could live without it. What scares me the most is that if that happened, I might have to get a real job. That’s frightening.”

With that, the 1984 U.S. Open champion walked away, limping slightly, but whistling as he walked.