In ’85 Open, His Bid Met Untimely End

On June 13, 1985, South African golfer Denis Watson had a short putt to win the United States Open.

He made it.

But wait a minute. Don’t look for his name up there on the trophy. Don’t look for him to be selling cars on TV or adorning the covers of national sports magazines. Don’t look for him to be among the favorites for the 86th U.S. Open here this week at Shinnecock Hills.

The record book says Andrew Stewart North won the 1985 Open.

No, he didn’t. I’ll tell you who won the Open: A guy who never took a shot or made a putt or read a break won it.

Your 1985 champion of the most venerable tournament of them all was--a fanfare, if you please, professor--a little known nonplayer from Amarillo, Tex., named Montford T. Johnson.

Nonplayer Johnson won the Open on the eighth hole of the opening round--for Andy North, as it happens--through a combination of quick wit, local knowledge and a minute study of the rules.

The details are the least bit complicated, so I will go slow:

Denis Watson, no relation to the other one, Tom, or to Sherlock Holmes’ doctor, is a superior player from Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, by way of Johannesburg, South Africa. No less an authority than South African Gary Player had said that Watson was going to be a good one. He had already won three tournaments by the time he teed it up at Oakland Hills near Detroit for the Open last year.

He was playing impeccable golf when he came up to the par-4 eighth hole in the opening round. He had a 10-footer for his par. It was slightly downhill, but it had no breaks and Watson thought he had it cleverly triangulated so it would die just at the hole.

It did. It was on line all the way. It fell into the hole for his 4.

But, just a minute! Out of the crowd, roaring “like a banshee,” according to Denis Watson, came, like an avenging archangel, our M.T. Johnson, waving his arms like an NBA official signaling no basket!

What was wrong with the putt? It went too slow. No change-ups on the golf course.

The United States Golf Assn., the House of Lords of golf, has a time limit on putts, it seems. No one is quite sure what it is, but golfer Watson’s didn’t make it, M.T. Johnson said.

The USGA is interested in speeding up play on its courses--aren’t we all? But, golfer Watson had used up only 40 seconds.

Now, 40 seconds to go 10 feet may seem an inordinate time, unless you’re on the Hollywood Freeway in peak traffic, but the point was, Denis Watson knew he had the putt all the way.

Bear in mind, it did fall into the hole.

The USGA’s Johnson was unimpressed. When the ball had hovered on the brink, Watson had used his allotted time, Johnson said. It was as if he Watson had been told, “Your three minutes are up, signal when through.”

Master Watson not only lost his par, but he also was assessed two shots for not running after his putt the way you and I do when we have missed the cup by two feet on the right. Watson had delayed at the edge of the green, hoping that the ball would do what it did--fall into the hole.

That’s a tough way to make a 6. That’s a tough way to lose a tournament.

Because, that decision cost our hero from Zimbabwe the 1985 Open. Make no mistake about that. He went on to shoot 280, even par, for the four rounds. North, the winner, unpenalized, shot 279. You don’t have to be a CPA to figure out that Watson, without the penalty, won by a shot.

Listen! Can you imagine if a fellow from the commissioner’s office had run out on the field the day Babe Ruth called his shot and hit a home run in the World Series, announcing that Ruth had swung too slow, or too fast, that he’d had a clock on him?

What if, after Gene Tunney had got up and resumed beating Dempsey, someone from the state athletic commission had climbed into the ring to announce that, according to his watch, Tunney had been down too long, the bout was over and Dempsey had won? Would you pay off?

Wouldn’t a guy in any other sport have a million storefront lawyers pleading his case--on a contingency basis in anticipation of a million-dollar settlement--if they found a client who had just been legislated out of a million-dollar championship on a technicality?

You can bet he would.

Golfer Watson didn’t even hit anybody. I don’t think he ever even threw a club.

You’re supposed to lose a U.S. Open the way Sam Snead used to. Hit it in the sand, explode it out of the water, bounce it off trees or over greens, misread a 14-inch putt.

Denis Watson lost it to the gallery. Bear in mind, he made the putt. And lost the Open, thereby. Think about that for a while.

I don’t know about you, but the guys I play with will wait till the ball is cobwebbed if they have to. Darkness will settle if necessary.

But the really interesting dilemma in tournament golf is that there is also a rule that you must not hit a moving ball. That, too, is a penalty. That has been a penalty in the grand old game a lot longer than the too-slow putt.

So, what does golfer Watson do? If his ball is not at rest--and it clearly was not since it subsequently kept moving into the hole--he could be penalized for hitting it. Instead, he got penalized for not hitting it.

Nor did he do what the guys in my foursomes might be expected to do--dance on the green, shout, pound the grass with their putters. Blow on the ball.

He just stood there. By the time he was sure the ball had stopped, it was in the bottom of the hole.

The rule says that “when any part of the ball overhangs the hole, the player is allowed enough time to reach the hole without unreasonable delay and an additional 10 seconds to determine whether the ball is at rest.”

The rule did not appear in the rule books until very recently. It was not put there by the royal and ancient Scots. The one-time commissioner of golf in this country, Joe Dey, once noted that it was not put in--in its current form--until the 1960s when a golfer named Don January took seven minutes to leave a ball on the lip. Presumably, he was praying for an earthquake.

Don January was only trying to win the Phoenix Open. Denis Watson was going for the Hall of Fame.

Now, the puzzle becomes, who’s name do you really put on the trophy? Andy North’s? Denis Watson’s? Or M.T. Johnson’s?

Golf is like no other game in the hierarchy. Where else could a guy who comes walking out of a crowd waving a stopwatch determine the outcome of a national championship?

What if a guy has a 100-foot putt? Do you allot time at so much a running foot? Supposing a guy is back in the trees? Do uphill putts get more time than downhillers? Or maybe it’s vice versa, since you have to hit downhill putts much more delicately than uphillers.

If you can’t hit a moving ball but your 10 seconds are through and the ball is still rolling, do you have to hit it again anyway?

What if you miss the putt and the hole altogether and the ball comes to rest in a water hazard off the green? Can you just take the two-stroke penalty for putting too slowly and not have to get it out of the water?

Watson was really lucky. He needed that putt for his 6. Is he lucky it fell? If it had hung on the lip for those 40 seconds and then he had to go tap it in, would that have made a 7?

Or was he unlucky that it fell in? If he had waited the 40 seconds and it hadn’t fallen in, and he’d had to tap it in, maybe M.T. Johnson would have let him sign for his 5? And he would have tied for the Open lead. And might have beaten Andy North in a playoff. If he putted fast enough, that is.