PGA Winner Bob Tway : Sure, but Can He Win From Out in Front?

If he walks slow, talks low and never changes expression until he’s holed out from a bunker on the last hole to slit your throat, then you just got cleaned and pressed by Bob Tway, the Oklahoma City Kid.

On the third tee at Inverness Country Club in Toledo, Ohio, last Monday, Greg Norman and Peter Jacobsen, two glamorous, handsome, crowd-pleasing gents with lots of style and plenty of gab, were putting on a show during a slow-play delay.

Speaking just loud enough for the gallery to eavesdrop, Norman talked about a charity event promoter who was “a jackass” and all the ways that this bad fellow was ruining a worthy cause with his personality. When he wasn’t chatting up the fans, Jacobsen bounced around The Great White Shark like a boy out to impress his big brother.

Bob Tway was left out entirely. Not exactly snubbed, just not invited to the fraternity party. Not quite cool enough. Tall and skinny with hair that’s earned him nicknames: Brillo and SOS.

So Tway watched and waited. All day, he bided his time, poker-faced. When Norman stalked quickly down every fairway, Tway lagged 100 yards behind. When Norman and Jacobsen swagged from green to tee, marshals clearing their paths, Tway took tiny steps through the mob and arrived late without acclaim.

As though a smile would exhaust him, Tway showed nothing. When he putted off one green and back down a fairway, he let his shoulders slump an inch. That was his one alloted tantrum during the most stressful afternoon of his career.

Then, after he had won the 68th PGA with the most amazing last-hole shot in the history of major tournament golf, Tway leaped up and down five times in a sand trap, grinned and hugged his caddie, then broke down a few minutes later and cried like a baby.

As with any great panhandle poker player, it was all inside all the time. But you don’t give away the game.

Greg Norman never knew he was being chased until after he had been caught and landed. Tway never charged, not that he wouldn’t have loved to shoot another Inverness course-record 64 like the one he had on Saturday. Six times he missed makable birdie putts and once a 12-foot eagle putt. Instead, all his great shots were made to save pars, not to ring up red numbers. Seven times in serious trouble, Tway made one bogey.

“Greg looked like he was trying too hard,” said Jacobsen, the third man in the booth all day. “Bob plugged along.”

Golf rewards a wide range of personalities. Different occasions seem to lend themselves to different types. Norman, for instance, loves to lap the field with his power game, but when his edge narrows, he’s prone to getting testy and nervy.

Tway’s a great lurker. When play was stopped by rain Sunday, Tway said, “He’ll be tough to catch, but I wanna be there if he doesn’t play well.”

Many (or maybe almost all) would have faded if they, like Tway, had cut Norman’s lead from four shots to two on the front nine, challenged for six straight tough no-blood holes, then suddenly fallen back to four strokes behind at the turn. Instead, Tway told his caddie, “We gotta start all over.”

Only time will tell to what degree Tway’s PGA win was a glorious product of almost perfect circumstance. No golfer will ever win and face less pressure. Tway was nine strokes behind Norman after two rounds and shot his 64 with nobody paying much attention. He never tied for the lead until the 14th hole when Norman backed up to him.

Thereafter, Tway hit the ball every which way but straight, yet saved himself with three fabulous greenside recovery shots for two pars and that winning birdie. Coming from behind is almost no pressure. Holding a tie for the lead is tough stuff. But hanging onto a narrow or dwindling lead is by far the hardest psychological task. Tway never got his lead until the instant he won. When his turn comes in a major, will Tway run from the front any better than Norman?

Many are anxious to find out. Tway has a game and a temperament that could go in any direction. His swing posture is unusual (swaybacked) and seems to beg for back problems--the best way to short-circuit a career. On the other hand, Tway seemed to have a firm interlocking grip on some of golf’s most basic adult concepts.

“In this game, you get better or worse. You never stay the same,” he said. “Mostly, I just want to get better. . . . I keep wanting more. I don’t know why, I just want more.”

No other approach suffices in the sport of constant retooling. There are no slumps like golf slumps.

Somehow, Tway, 27, has backed his fires at an early age. “When I played at Oklahoma State (and made all-America three times), whether I shot 65 or 75, I was always disgusted. I came off the course mad. I finally decided that was ridiculous. If I was going to play golf the rest of my life, I was going to have to start enjoying it more. I may not look like it, but I’m enjoying the heck out of it now.”

Many athletes never learn what Tway has obviously internalized already. “Pressure is just how much you want something.” And Tway, though he always “wants more,” doesn’t want to win so desperately much that it thwarts him. That’s a delicate razor’s edge to walk.

Tway also has the advantage of being an extreme clear-eyed realist. Maybe that comes from not being too gifted, too gaudy, too glamorous. “I wasn’t even trying to make that last shot. I’m not that good,” said Tway. “There are no odds for it. I may never do that again in my career.”

Contrast that with Norman’s braggadocio about how his three off-the-green holeouts at the PGA were basically deliberate acts of will. Asked if he felt that pressure had undone him at the last, Norman said, “I don’t think so. But do you think I would admit it if I did?”

Tway might admit it. At least to himself.

On the famous last shot--the blast from what will now always be known as Tway’s Twap--Norman did not have as dead honest a recollection. “If it had missed the pin, the ball would’ve gone 20 feet past,” said Norman, who may need such a consolation in defeat. Tway said, “It would probably have gone four or five feet past. Or maybe three or eight. I don’t know.” Replays show Tway had it right.

Tway worries little, which may be an advantage comparable to Norman’s edge in raw athletic ability. As to Tway’s status in the game now, Jacobsen evaluated it best: “Boom, way up.”

By the ’87 PGA, which will be played at Tway’s home course--Oak Tree--much of the verdict may be in on whether Norman, Tway or both can stay at golf’s slippery pinnacle.

One final image may give us an insight into Tway’s chances. Two hours after his historic shot, Tway reached into his golf bag and discovered that $10,000 worth of jewelry and cash had been stolen. He never got upset, never stopped talking with fans and even tried to console his wife, who had just given him that $9,000 watch as an anniversary present.

The Kid’s attitude seemed fitting. After all, he’d just stolen a whole lot more from Greg Norman.