Golf’s Version of a Perfect Game

It was Secretariat winning his Belmont by 31 lengths. Louis knocking out Schmeling before the anthem had died down, the ’27 Yankees obliterating opposition in four-straight runaways and by 18-4. It was winning an America’s Cup by a day.

It was everyman’s ultimate fantasy. Walter Mitty stuff. You picture yourself doing to a golf course, a tournament, what Tom Kite did to the Bob Hope Desert Classic Sunday--these long, rolling incredible putts streaming into the hole, these brilliant on-a-clothesline drives streaking out to split the fairway, these deft, delicate little chips right out of a textbook.

It might be the most incandescent round of golf ever played. It was Hogan on his best day, Palmer scattering his field in the ’64 Masters, Nicklaus methodically taking apart Pebble Beach.

It was the lowest 90-hole tournament score ever turned in.

You take all the great matchups in history--Clark Gable in “Gone With The Wind,” Gene Kelly in the rain, Enrico Caruso with the second act of “Traviata”--and they pale in comparison with Tom Kite and the four desert golf courses he played here.

There might never be a virtuoso performance again to match this one.

Was this the greatest tournament of golf ever played? Well, Kite broke the tournament record, 35-under-par for 90 holes. He broke the course record Sunday with a 62. He broke the all-time low score record by (count ‘em!) six shots.

You had to go clear back to 1955 to find a comparable 72-hole record. Set by Mike Souchak at a rubber-mat course in Texas, it was 257 for 72 holes--27 under par. Hogan was 27 under (261) at Portland in 1945.

Kite’s mark was for 90 holes but, at an average of seven-under-par per day, the best scoring spree ever turned in. He did unbelievable things with golf clubs--10 putts in nine holes, a 62 with a bogey on one hole, numbers that indicate he should have been frisked for a halo on the first tee.

Kite’s scoring, 67-67-64-65-62, is fantasy. Golf is a game in which even the most proficient of players throws in one cold round a tournament. When your “cold”’ round is 67, you obviously know something about hitting a golf ball the other guys don’t. When these numbers are turned in by the defending U.S. Open champion, attention must be paid.

The players call getting in this kind of birdie-birdie funk “the zone.” It’s almost as if some higher power were taking the club back for you, following through, whispering the breaks in your ear, clubbing you exactly right.

But Kite says he’s a “grinder.” English translation: blue-collar golfer. He works for what he gets. He stays out after a round, no matter how precocious, working on things he was not satisfied with on the course that day. He will putt until he needs a flashlight.

Tom Kite doesn’t depend on divine intervention. No angel sits on his shoulders steering the tee shots, lining up the putts, insuring the lies are flat.

What we saw out here Sunday was not some darling of fate who had an out-of-body experience. Kite knew where each shot was coming from and where it was going. He has been practicing them since he was 5.

The courses, of course, were in the immaculate condition of palace grounds, preternaturally green, lush, marble-floor perfect. But two of these courses were over 6,900 yards, another was 6,800 and Indian Wells was a narrow, daunting, rock-strewn 6,400 yards between narrow mountain passes. No one will ever mix them up with Augusta, or Pebble Beach or St. Andrews but you better keep it straight.

Anyway, Tom Kite won his Open at Pebble. And you have to remember in another era, the golfing world used to consider the Phoenix and Tucson Opens as the tour patsies. Except that the giants of golf--the guys who went on to win U.S. and British opens and Masters--Hogan, Mangrum, Byron Nelson, Palmer and Trevino and Miller--all won at Phoenix and Tucson. A player is a player.

Tom Kite joined the ages when he won at Pebble last June. But his burst of golf at the desert this week should linger as long in the record books. It is hard to imagine anyone who does not arrive by spaceship throwing these kinds of shots at a golf course in a five-day period.

He reached another level. He did it without a reckless shot, a desperate chance. He did it while in full control. “I consider myself a conservative player. I consider myself a smart player. I do not try to jam a ball in there that I feel cannot be jammed in there.”

It was, incredibly, a calculated, almost routine 35 under par.

He may never be able to do it again. He may never have to. To have been at the top of Everest once is enough.

This round of golf, this tournament, should go direct to the Smithsonian. Hell, to the Louvre!