He Didn’t Get Enough Help From His Partner

So, I blew the U.S. Open. Me and Mike Donald.

Big deal! I’ve blown ‘em before. Me and Arnold in ’66. Me and Ben in ’55.

We had our chances, Mike and I. Had it right in the palm of our hand. Damn! We had a two-shot lead with three holes to play. But, what three holes! Haunted houses. Nos. 16, 17 and 18. We hit one bad shot. The tee shot on 18.

That’s no place to turn in a snap hook. You don’t give a Hale Irwin an opening like that. Next thing you know, there will be a guy sticking a microphone in your face and wanting to know how it feels to blow a U.S. Open on the 90th hole.

Hale Irwin, who thought he had won his third U.S. Open with a 45-foot putt on the 18th green Sunday, turned out to be dead right.

He won it outright with a seven-footer on the 19th playoff hole Monday. But, we--Mike and I--shouldn’t have been there.

In case you’re wondering how Mike and I became a twosome, it happened when a reporter asked me for my pick and, out of a crowd of 156 golfers, I picked Donald. I looked like Nostradamus for four days.

We gave it a great run. But Hale Irwin is not only the oldest golfer ever to win a U.S. Open, but the most tenacious. He’s harder to put away than Rasputin. You have to try gunshots, poison, drowning--you can’t kill him with bogeys, which is what me and Mike tried on a couple of holes, notably the 11th.

It wasn’t the kind of golf you want to hang on the walls in the Louvre. Or Golf House. Both competitors shot 74 for 18 holes. There were times when it looked like the truck driver flight at Duluth Municipal.

Hale Irwin got into this tournament on a pass. As a two-time Open winner, the USGA took pity on him and sent him a special exemption. They thought it was a nice gesture. They started doing this 24 years ago for Ben Hogan. He was 54 years old at the time and promptly finished 12th.

So, no one expected Hale Irwin to do much more than show up.

Hale Irwin is not a guy who just shows up. He’s a kind of ornery cuss is what he is. There’s nothing he likes better than to be on a fairway and able to say “You’re away!”

His 10-year exemption (for winning his second Open at Inverness in 1979) had expired. So, the USGA sent him an engraved invitation. Usually, you have to shoot your way into a U.S. Open. That’s how me and Mike got in. Finished 22nd on the money list last year. (Hale was 93rd, not good enough.)

So, when Hale shot an opening-round 69, everybody thought, “Real cute--but you don’t belong here.” Those old boys could play for two rounds. Maybe three at the most.

Then, it was presumed, the demons of age would take over. The concentration would slip. The eyes would squint. The swing would get a little arthritic.

Four rounds of tournament golf is not like going 15 with Mike Tyson. But you get the hemorrhaging where it doesn’t show. It’s kind of hard to remember how you used to do it. I mean, look, don’t your bones creak when you get up from a chair in a hurry?

So, they figured Hale would make a good showing till his feet began to hurt, his eyes ached, his teeth hurt.

Hale’s eyes never have been what you would call eagle. I think he was the first guy to win a U.S. Open wearing glasses. Then, he became the first guy to win a U.S. Open wearing contacts. And that was in the ‘70s. Hale hadn’t won a tournament of any kind since 1985. You had to figure he was out here to take a bow, take a last glorious walk in the sun, tip his cap--and bogey his way out of the tournament.

I sure wasn’t going to pick him. Neither was anyone else.

So, when Hale shot 70 on the second day, people were still yawning and trying to look interested. After all, Medinah was playing easy. Hale was playing on memory, everyone figured. It would catch up to him.

On Saturday, it seemed it did. When he ballooned to a 74, the writers felt that Hale had gone as far as he could. After all, he was 45 years old. That’s not old for a member-guest at Riviera, but it’s dotage for a U.S. Open.

Hale is stubborn. It’s not his most endearing trait--but it’s a good one to have if you have 72 holes to play in the Open.

On Sunday afternoon, Hale was as overlooked as the butler or one of the marshals on the course. He was playing with Greg Norman, his hair and teeth gleaming in the sunlight, and there was Hale plodding along with his soft lenses and his compact swing.

Suddenly, on the back nine, Hale Irwin shot birdie-birdie-birdie-birdie. He came up to No. 18 seven under par for the tournament--and then he rolled in a 45-foot putt that set off dancing in the streets--by Hale, anyway.

Still, you had to wonder about 18 extra holes. He was playing a guy who was about as old as Hale was when he was winning all those Opens, a guy whose back was strong, eyes perfect, grip solid. My Mike.

Hale kind of stalked him like that posse after Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Every time Mike looked up, Hale was right there. He was dogged, precise, ubiquitous.

He knew Open pressure. He knew gamesmanship. Hale can play the cards he’s dealt.

It was as if he was looking for an opening.

It came on the 18th tee after Hale had cut the lead to a shot on the 16th. Mike and I swung at the ball too fast there. The smother hook went chattering into the woods, where we had to play it out into a greenside trap.

Mike was on his own by now. I had done all I could for him, like going down to the practice tee before the round and telling him, “I ain’t nervous--so why should you be?”

Mike came out of the bunker on 18, you might say, in a mediocre fashion. He had 25 feet to the cup.

Hale was considerably closer.

But when they both missed their approach putts, Hale didn’t mark his. He stepped up to a knee-knocking little missable putt almost as if to flaunt his coolness and cockiness at Donald. If he misses, Donald has won the tournament. If he makes, Donald’s foot gets immediately four feet longer.

I couldn’t look, but both made them.

They went to their 19th hole, No. 1, a deceptively innocent-looking little straightaway hole that is like a wolf in a stocking cap and granny glasses.

Hale birdied it. Me and Mike never even got to hole out. The 1990 U.S. Open was over.

Yeah. But wait till next year.