Frustration, Redemption Punctuate Golf Majors

There was a theme throughout this year’s major golf championships that might be described as the Grand Slam of Choke. The lesson may have been that everybody does so at one time or another.

For the victors, such as PGA winner Payne Stewart, the majors were redeeming. For the losers, such as Mike Reid, there was self-doubt and continuing anonymity. Stewart finally became a player of stature when he captured the PGA on Sunday at Kemper Lakes, rising from six strokes back and deep in the field. Reid was the leader for three rounds, but was upstaged each day, first by Arnold Palmer, then by the weather, and then by his own failure and Stewart.

“I think we all identify with each other,” Reid said.

Reid shared the PGA lead after one round, led by two shots after two rounds, by three shots after three rounds, and still by three as he stood on the 16th tee Sunday. But Stewart, in a get-up of cap and plus fours, came from six strokes back to grab the title. He birdied four of the last five holes, while Reid bogeyed the 16th and double-bogeyed the 17th with a lock-wristed three-putt.

Stewart, 32, has been known for his costumes, eccentricities and rich endorsements, but also for losing, with 11 second places. So he was something of a braggart in accepting the trophy, the guy who does the dance in the end zone, waggles the ball in your face. “Sales,” he said, “are about to go up.”

Reid, 35, thin and soft-spoken with glasses too big for his face, did not even curse after his 2-over 74. “Dog breath,” he said. He has just two career titles, and until 1987 was known as the first player to earn $1 million without winning a tournament. Now he will be known as the most sympathetic player on tour, one who played the 17th as many a recreational golfer has, stubbing his chip and jerking a two-foot putt that gave the title to Stewart.

“Where does a guy go to cry around here?” he said.

It was an excruciating defeat to watch, and even Jack Nicklaus was moved to seek out a weeping Reid in the locker room, and speak soft words. “I just want to say that I’ve never felt so bad for anyone in my life,” Nicklaus told him. “You played too well not to win.”

During the first round, Reid was all but ignored in the pandemonium over the 59-year-old Palmer’s round of 68 that put him just two strokes back. Palmer, who won eight majors but never a PGA, was heard from again Sunday, his 70 coming with a downhill, 25-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole that provoked the biggest noise of the tournament. He finished at 5-over 293 to salvage a third round of 81, and left the course with his arms high over his head as if he had won. “It meant a lot,” he said.

In the second round it was Craig Stadler’s course-record 64 that eclipsed Reid. In the third it was a magnificent thunderstorm that overwhelmed his play. He also was overshadowed by the course, as the 7,197-yard Kemper Lakes yielded 153 subpar rounds, a record for any major championship. But Reid’s demise was merely one of many in a year that may be best remembered for failures. Greg Norman’s loss in a playoff to Mark Calcavecchia in the British Open after a final round 64, and two double bogeys this past week that kept him out of contention, might suggest some sort of hex. “Do I invite disaster? I certainly have a flair for attracting it,” he said.

Wayne Grady of Australia, who also fell to Calcavecchia, now has finished second 27 times in his career. Tom Kite, another perennial runner-up in majors, vainly tried to rationalize how he lost a four-stroke lead to Curtis Strange in the final round of the U.S. Open at Oak Hill, committing a triple bogey and two double bogeys. “I played 13 holes in one under,” he said.

Scott Hoch lost the Masters playoff with Nick Faldo of Britain when he could not make a two-foot par putt. Sunday he failed to earn a coveted berth on the Ryder Cup team when he bogeyed the last two holes. That, combined with Dave Rummells’s freakish 45-foot birdie putt on the 18th, meant Mark McCumber was named instead. Hoch had to finish fifth to unseat McCumber, but tied for seventh with Stadler.

“This reinforces that I can’t do what I need to do to win,” Hoch said. “If people weren’t around I’d probably be breaking things.”

Reid, Hoch, Kite, Norman and Grady could only bear in mind that the 1989 Grand Slam victors had once been in the same position.

Strange was called the most talented underachiever in the game until he broke through to win the U.S. Open at Brookline, Mass., last year. His victory at Oak Hill was a reaffirmation, as was his tie for second Sunday with a 69 that included a half-dozen missed birdie putts.

Faldo was called “Foldo” by his home media until he won the ’87 British Open, and authenticated his talent by coming from nowhere to win the Masters. Calcavecchia was on and off the PGA Tour three times, broke and struggling, before he emerged. His playoff victory over Norman and Grady for his first major was the culmination of an essay in determination.

“I felt sorry for Greg,” Calcavecchia said the morning after his victory. “But I slept on it and I don’t feel sorry for him anymore. I beat him fair and square.”

Stewart finished second in the 1985 British Open to Sandy Lyle. Four times in the last six years he was among the top 10 at the British. During his final PGA round of 67, he talked to the sky.

“I asked, How about some good stuff for Payne Stewart one time?”

So when he kicked down the invisible wall for his first major, he did not hesitate to congratulate himself.

“I’ve played so well and come so close, and come away empty so often, that there’s a little justice here,” he said. “And I’m going to savor it.”