The Los Angeles Open : When This Guy Gets a Little Mad, He Gets a Lot Better

We never know what’s good for us. Remember how your grandmother used to tell you that to get you to eat your broccoli?

Sometimes, the worst thing that can happen to you is to get what you think you want most in the world.

Take Mark Calcavecchia, the golfer. On Sunday afternoon in the brisk raw setting of Riviera Country Club’s 12th hole, Calcavecchia was standing in the middle of the fairway with a little seven-iron to the green. He was one-shot behind the dour Scotsman, Sandy Lyle, with eight holes to play in the L.A. Open.

All Calcavecchia wanted in the world was to nip that little shot up there on the green somewhere adjacent to the hole where he could putt for a birdie and tie the match. Lyle had already jerked his shot into the left rough.

Calcavecchia got a break. Only he didn’t think so. The shot came off just as he had pictured it. It landed perfectly on the green right where he was aiming. “It was just a perfect shot,” he said later.

And, then, it took this unaccountable one hop over the green and into the rough behind.

Mark Calcavecchia was beside himself with rage. He slammed his club in the ground, cursed, kicked at it--and strode off with teeth gnashed and fists clenched.

He had just won the golf tournament is all. Because, Mark Calcavecchia was to go up to the green and take his most trusty club--a weapon he calls his “L-wedge,” and squirt a chip shot right in the hole for a three. Lyle was to miss his birdie shot and, in fact, was to miss a par shot two holes later. He was to lose the tournament by one shot.

If Calcavecchia had brought off his approach shot the way he devoutly wished, the match might have gone on into the gloaming.

It was not the first time in the round that Calcavecchia wanted to go bury a club in the ground. At the 10th hole, he similarly stood over a near-perfect drive. He took his wedge and, in his own words, “hit it fat.” The resulting terrible shot put him at such a disadvantageous position near the green, he was in danger of needing three putts. He only needed one. Another birdie.

Golf is that kind of a game. Life may be unfair but golf is downright satanic. It’s the real evil empire.

Mark Calcavecchia is the L.A. Open champion today--joining such illustrious ancestors as Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, Arnold Palmer, Gene Littler--because of two shots which, if someone had said after he hit them, “Oh, here’s a ball, hit another one!” he would have done and yelled “Pick that one up I just hit over the green, will you? I’ll play this one.”

Fortunately, he had to go play two balls which turned out to be in perfect birdie position.

He had to play 27 holes to win the L.A. Open Sunday. And 23 of them were pars and four of them birdies. Three of the birdies were chip-ins after approach shots that had Calcavecchia railing at the gods.

The facts of the matter are that Mark Calcavecchia is playing about as good golf as anyone on the American tour at the moment. He plays it at one speed--wide open. If he were a pitcher he’d be a fireballer. If he were a race driver, he’d floor it. In basketball, he’d go for three-pointers. In fact, driving to the course Saturday, he got a traffic ticket. He wasn’t speeding, he explained, just driving too fast. Mark even wants to birdie Sunset Boulevard.

He thinks every shot should be a birdie, every putt a drop. Every drive should split the fairway, every pitch should hit the flag. He takes it personally when a shot doesn’t come off the way he thinks it should. He takes it out on the club, the ball, the bag, whatever is nearest. He threw such a tantrum at the AT&T; last week that he later apologized to his playing partner, Gary Carter, and anyone else within earshot.

He’s not as tempestuous as, say, Tommy Bolt. Tommy was sure golf was out to get him. The guy Mark Calcavecchia fears (rightly) is Mark Calcavecchia. “Whenever I start making a jerk out of myself, start acting like a crybaby, I rely on my wife to straighten me out. She comes and says, ‘Hey, you jerk, you’re making a jerk out of yourself. You’re lucky to be out here, you’re lucky there’s a game like golf for you to play. Stop embarrassing me--and yourself.”

Impatient, bad-tempered, suspicious, Mark is not apt to put anybody in mind of St. Francis of Assisi just yet, but he did note that, as angry as he got at the shots that won him the tournament, two years ago it would have been worse. “It used to take me three to four holes to get over it. I would pout, fume. It’s all right to get mad if you just go on to the next shot and put it behind you.”

His opponent, Sandy Lyle, probably just got a lousy break. He didn’t have any shots to get mad at, any perfect swings that just took bad hops. Of course, the trouble with Sandy Lyle is, you cannot tell by looking at him whether he liked the shot or not. In fact, you cannot tell by looking at him whether he just won a million bucks or just heard he had a year to live.

It used to be a cliche to say of Tommy Bolt, “No telling how much he would have won if he had not gotten so angry on the golf course.” Now that Mark Calcavecchia has won two tournaments and $358,952 already this year, look for the golf books to put rage right alongside keep-your-left-arm-straight as an adjunct to good shooting. Except that Mark Calcavecchia may be the only guy on tour to go into a tantrum over a shot that has just put him up there in birdie range and won him an L.A. Open.