Irwin’s New Outlook : Veteran Pro Says ‘Beaning’ in Pro-Am Has Given Him an Attitude Adjustment

When Hale Irwin stepped onto the Riviera Country Club course Wednesday for the pro-am before the Los Angeles Open, he was hoping to come away with a book full of notes on the course and its conditions.

What he came away with was a nasty, gaping gash on his forehead and a face full of blood. And he considered himself very lucky.

Irwin was struck by a ball hit by former Ram center Rich Saul. The force of the blow opened a two-inch laceration on Irwin’s face and required 16 stitches to close. He was held at Santa Monica Hospital for several hours and then released.

Saul, who made a career out of playing injured, said the accident made him sick. “It was my second shot and I hooked a three-wood,” he said.

“Hale was more than 200 yards away and I hooked it through a row of trees. All of a sudden I see people running and gathering in one spot and yelling. I knew right away what happened. I ran over as fast as I could and someone was putting pressure on the cut to stop the bleeding. He was laying there with blood on his sweater and golf glove, and he looked up and told me, ‘I’m fine.’

“I felt so, so bad. It really made me feel terrible. Just about an hour earlier I had met him in the locker room and introduced myself. And then I went and did that. I felt so bad. This is a very low point in my life.”

Twenty-four hours later, though, Irwin was back on the course for the opening round of the tournament. And with a throbbing head, he shot a one-under-par 70.

Friday, with a new bandage covering the wound, he shot four-under-par 67 and was just three strokes off the lead with two rounds to play.

The fact that his name is on the leader board is not, however, why Irwin feels lucky. He feels lucky because he can see his name on the leader board. And he can see the leader board. And the golf course.

“I stare at it now in the mirror and I realize just how close it came to something else,” said Irwin, avoiding direct mention of his eye. “It sure smacks you with a dose of reality. I misread some putts today, and all I could think was how thankful I was that I could see them at all.”

Irwin had hit his second shot on the seventh hole during the pro-am and had turned to walk. Instantly, he heard someone yell “fore” and saw only a flash before he crumbled to the wet ground.

“I just saw a flash of white,” he said. “I actually saw the ball and it registered in my brain what was about to happen, but there was no time to react. I didn’t even begin to put my hands up and then, bang. I remember dropping my club and then bringing my hands to my face and then laying down.”

Doctors told him he would have suffered serious and permanent damage to his eye had the ball hit it directly. His brush with disaster left Irwin shaken even on Friday. But somehow, he said, it may have helped his golf game.

“I’ve always been very intense on the course, and I always will be,” he said. “But for the first time, I felt different out there the last two days. It gave me an attitude adjustment. I approached the course the next day a bit differently than I ever had approached a tournament before.”

Irwin, 43, winner of 17 PGA tournaments, including the 1976 L.A. Open and the 1974 and 1979 U.S. Opens, said he also found himself thinking back to a scene he encountered three weeks ago in Myrtle Beach, S.C. He was the first motorist to come upon a crash on a dark road, a crash that killed a young woman. Irwin was the first to reach the woman who was pinned in the wreckage. But it was too late.

“She had no pulse,” he said.

That accident left an invisible scar on Irwin. Wednesday’s accident will leave a visible scar.

“I got upset at myself on the course today but quickly caught myself and asked, ‘Why am I complaining about golf?’ ” he said. “That was the first time I had ever started feeling like that. I’ll still be intense out there, but now it’s different. I’m still wrestling with the emotion, but I feel a change.”

The change showed late Friday when Irwin, not noted for his humor during his 22 years on the tour, was asked if perhaps the injury was a message from above.

“If it was, I wish He had found a different way to get the message to me,” Irwin said. “A golf ball to the face was a bit much. A vision in my sleep would have been nice.”