Ballesteros Gives Price His Best Shot : His 9-Iron on No. 16 Helps Carry Him to British Open Victory

The 16th hole at Royal Lytham and St. Annes Golf Club, a 357-yard wonderland the way Severiano Ballesteros plays it, has 16 bunkers, a green 38 yards long and twice has made a Spanish farmer’s son the British Open champion.

It was on this same hole in 1979, on the same final day of the tournament, that Ballesteros hit his drive beneath a car in a nearby parking lot but birdied the hole and won his first British Open.

There were no cars on the 16th fairway to interfere with the drive Ballesteros hit Monday, so when his second shot traveled 135 yards to land on a sun-splashed green just 3 inches from the cup, it was clear there were no players left who could beat him.

Nine years after he won his first major title on this same Royal Lytham course at age 22, Ballesteros birdied No. 16 to break a tie with Nick Price and go on to win his fifth major.

Ballesteros held the silver claret jug aloft Monday for the third time as British Open champion, which goes along nicely with his two victories in the Masters. After he blew kisses to the crowd, bussed the trophy and hugged his caddy, Ballesteros said he is not much different than he was in 1979.

“My putter, 3-wood, driver, sand wedge and clothes are all the same,” said Ballesteros, whose four-round total was 11-under-par 273. “The only thing different is I’m 9 years older.”

Ballesteros overtook Price with his dramatic 9-iron shot on No. 16 and shot a final-round 65 that tied the course record and ended a golfing duel that even a gunfighter would have admired.

Neither blinked. Price, who took a two-shot lead into the final round, stood up well to the last-day pressure and shot 69, but still finished two strokes back at 275 after he bogeyed No. 18.

“I’m not really down,” Price said. “When you’re beaten the way he played, you just bow out gracefully.”

Ballesteros, who thought before the round that a score of 68 or 69 would be good enough to win, was surprised it took more than that.

“I didn’t expect Nick Price to play so good,” Ballesteros said. “I think we both showed we can handle the pressure very good. No one choked, or anything like that.”

Price and Ballesteros were the only players left with a chance to win by the time they played No. 16. By then, Nick Faldo had taken himself out of the running and so had Sandy Lyle, neither able to maintain the birdie pace set by Price and Ballesteros.

Price was tied with Ballesteros at 10 under par when he reached the 16th tee, but trailed by a shot when he left the green. While Price could do no better than par, Ballesteros tapped in his putt from 3 inches for a birdie, made possible by his shot from the fairway that even Price was forced to admire.

“That was sheer class,” he said.

Ballesteros could find no fault with that shot, nor his entire round.

“I played about as good as the game can be played,” he said. “That kind of round happens every 25 or 50 years.”

Ballesteros was asked whether he had just played the round of his life.

“So far,” he said.

The only British Open in history to finish on a Monday came to its rain-delayed conclusion in mild weather and light breezes on a day that alternated between flashes of sunlight and clouds.

What began as a four-way chase between Price, Ballesteros, Faldo and Lyle quickly became something like match play between Price and Ballesteros.

Fred Couples, who started the final round at even-par 213, five shots back of Price, made a run with back-to-back eagles at 6 and 7, but he still got no closer than three shots.

Couples lost two strokes on the back nine to finish with a 68. He was tied with Gary Koch, who also had a 68, at 281, eight shots behind Ballesteros in fourth place. Peter Senior of Australia was a stroke behind the two Americans after a closing-round 69.

Faldo, the defending champion, bogeyed the second hole and severely damaged his chances at the par-5 No. 7, the easiest hole on the course.

Playing in the same group with Price and Ballesteros, Faldo parred the hole while both of his playing partners eagled it.

“That killed me,” Faldo said.

He hit a good 4-iron to the green with his second shot, but the ball stopped in such a position that Faldo had to putt the ball uphill and hoped it would roll close to the hole. It didn’t. Faldo three-putted and lost two strokes.

Lyle’s 74 dropped him into a seventh-place tie and included a 40 on the back nine.

Ballesteros caught Price for the first time with a birdie at No. 8 when he rolled in an 18-footer. But that was only the middle of a remarkable stretch of clutch putting for Ballesteros.

Ballesteros played No. 6 through No. 11 in 6 under: birdie, eagle, birdie, par, birdie, birdie. His putting was uncanny, and he finished the streak with a flurry.

Ballesteros birdied No. 10 with a 20-footer and came right back at No. 11 with another 20-foot birdie. Once again, Price could only stand by and admire.

“What lost me the championship, if you can call it that, is that he putted better than I did,” Price said.

Price had only one more chance at Ballesteros, who two-putted from 5 feet at the 14th for a bogey that left them tied. Price stood over a 6-footer for his par, but he missed the right-to-left breaking putt when he pulled it, and Ballesteros had escaped.

“I let my concentration slip,” Price said.

“I think we were both waiting for the other to make a mistake,” he said. “I don’t think I made one. He just played better. There’s nothing better than to play the standard of golf we played on the last day of a major championship.”

After bogeying the second hole, Price was consistent, but not as spectacular as Ballesteros. Price birdied No. 6, and after eagling No. 7, birdied No. 10 and No. 13 to tie Ballesteros. They were still tied after matching bogeys at 14.

Both players had par on No. 15, setting up No. 16, where on the 70th hole of the fifth day in the oldest golf tournament in the world, Ballesteros made the kind of shots champions always seem to do.

He had only one regret. “Pity they don’t park cars on the fairway,” Ballesteros joked.

There were 13 scores Monday in the 60s because of the favorable weather and Americans posted seven of them. Payne Stewart’s 67 moved him into a four-way tie for seventh place. Also shooting 68 were Curtis Strange, Tom Kite, Jack Nicklaus and Jay Haas.

With the fourth-place finish of Couples and Koch the highest of the Americans, the prediction of European Ryder Cup captain Tony Jacklin that no U.S. player had a chance proved accurate.

“I thought he was silly to say that, but I guess we made him a prophet,” Couples said.

The victory was worth 80,000 pounds, or $136,000 to Ballesteros, who considered another measure of its value. Ballesteros had not won a major tournament since the 1984 British Open at St. Andrews.

He thought about the confidence he regained in winning another major, some of which he lost at the 1986 Masters when he hit a ball into the water at No. 15 on the final day. Ballesteros, who then had a four-shot lead over Nicklaus with four holes left, wound up losing to Nicklaus and finished fourth.

“At Augusta, I lost the confidence very much,” he said. “From where I was, in 10 times I should be the winner 8 times.”

The Masters was no better for him in 1987 when he was eliminated on the first hole of a playoff with eventual winner Larry Mize and Greg Norman.

“When I lost the playoff, I was wondering about my time . . . when it would come.

“I know Nick Price showed he is a champion, too. He will win a major someday. He played fantastic, but I think I was just a little bit luckier than he was.

“A lot of players want to win. It was just my turn this week.”