Champ Takes It on the Chin

If you like to see a great champion, eyes glazed, rubber-legged, on the ropes, cut and bleeding before the onslaught of some eager young bull; if your bag was Louis’ head hitting the bottom rope, Dempsey groping to see where Tunney had just gone; if you liked to see Willie Mays unable to get around on the fastball anymore, the 90th U.S. Open Thursday was right up your alley.

But it wasn’t a golfer who was on his last legs, it was the course.

Medinah is one of the great competitors of golf, 7,195 yards of brawling infighting and counterpunching. If it were human, its name would be Rocky.

Well, it’s bleeding from every pore today. It was knocked down 20 times in the first round. If this were a fight, the ref would be looking at it quizzically or calling the doctor in the ring to shine a light in its eyes. Guys named Billy Ray Brown are knocking it through the ropes.

It’s the function of a great Open course to weed out the ribbon clerks in the first rounds, to send the marginal players back to the bus depot or the feeder airlines and home.

But the ribbon clerks are mopping up the floor with Medinah. It’s floundering around the ring apron looking for its mouthpiece.

It would be one thing if the great names of golf were taking this liberty with the old champ. But how do the names of Tim (The Other) Simpson, Steve Jones, Mike Donald, Bob Gilder, Mark Brooks, John Huston--the one who didn’t direct “The African Queen”--and Tom Byrum grab you? Are you ready for Emlyn Aubrey?

Those are the guys ahead on all cards in this title fight. Medinah has lumps all over it from guys who have to rank as club fighters in the hierarchy of golf.

But the old guard can’t seem to lay a glove on the old pug, even though its hands are down at its side and it’s looking up at the clock and clinching at every opportunity.

Curtis Strange, who is trying to become only the second guy in history to win three Opens in a row, was beside himself with rage and frustration.

“Medinah was defenseless today,” he fumed as he came into the press tent after a round of 73. “Medinah was ready to be taken. It’ll never play easier than it did today.”

An overnight rain that sogged the fairways and made the greens as easy to hold as a pub dart board combined to defang the course, where three over par won the Open the last time it was played here.

It’s downright embarrassing. Curtis Strange, who is harder on Curtis Strange than his worst enemy would be, couldn’t believe he let the course off the hook. Curtis was in a bag-kicking, club-mashing mood as he reflected on how he had squandered his chances.

True to the code of the professional golfer, Strange was not about to cop out entirely. You have to understand that no golfer can let his self-esteem get so low as to blame his tee-to-green game. It is always putting, that sissy part of golf, that betrays him. The last golfer to admit he was putting well was Auld Tom Morris--or, maybe, Laurie Auchterlonie.

Curtis is no exception.

“You have to understand, you don’t expect to make every putt,” he acknowledged carefully. “But you do expect to stroke the ball so that you don’t miss the putt before contact is even made.”

As Exhibit A, Curtis offered his card, showing a trio of three-putt greens, two putts missed under six feet, one putt missed under four feet and two putts missed under 12 feet. His putter should have had rattles.

Strange was not the only favorite to falter, just the most visible.

Seve Ballesteros disappeared into the trees and emerged 74 shots later, not catastrophic but hardly encouraging. Tom Kite put up a 75. Greg Norman slashed his way to a 72, ordinarily a respectable Open score but good only for the fringes on this day when 50-odd players shot par or better.

Can Medinah get off the floor and mix it up with this bunch? Is it a good, game course or have the Midwest thundershowers turned it into a canvasback? Has it been knocked out in one round? A Joe Louis bum-of-the-month equivalent?

“I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Medinah yet,” cautioned Strange. “I don’t think Medinah is through with us yet.”

Predicted Jack Nicklaus, “Medinah will ultimately win. It always has.”

Could be. But it had taken a standing eight-count as of the close of business Thursday.

The first 18 holes of a U.S. Open are usually like the first rounds of a heavyweight championship fight, the first few laps of an Indy 500. The veterans are content to jab, clinch, back off the pedal, hit the brake, feel their way into the contest, find the trouble, size up the problem. The rookies fly at the course’s throat. They’re reckless, chance-taking. They make a birdie and their spirits soar: “Damn! I could do something here!”

Medinah this week is getting respect only from the wilier older players. Do they have too much respect for this old campaigner? Can’t they see its reflexes are slowed, its punch gone?

There’s an old saying: “If you shoot at a king, kill him.” The golfers may yet wish they could have. As long as the old boy can stay up, it still has a puncher’s chance.

“All it needs is for the wind to come up and the greens to dry out,” warned Nicklaus, who should know.

And if that happens, we got Rocky VI and VII. Not for the squeamish.