Chip Shot Was Not Right Play

Listen! When your corner pushes you out in the center of the ring in round 15 and says you have to knock the guy out to win, you don’t run out there and clinch.

When Knute Rockne calls the squad in the locker room to give them a pep talk to go out and beat Army, they don’t go out there and punt.

You don’t fold three aces. You don’t go gently into that good night, you rage against the dying of the light. You echo John Paul Jones when your back is up against the wall. You say, “I have not yet begun to fight.”

And then, there’s Chip Beck.

Chip Beck more or less handed the 57th Masters to Bernhard Langer on Sunday. You might say he quit in his corner.

Langer might have won it anyway, but Chip didn’t take any chances. He made sure.

Here were the circumstances: The two golfers, Beck and Langer, all that was left of a competitive field, came down to the final nine Sunday. Langer had a three-shot lead going into the 15th hole.

The 15th hole at Augusta is a pivotal hunk of real estate. It is 500 yards long and has a green separated from the fairway by a moat of water in front and back. What you do is, you hit your drive. Then, you assay your chances of clearing the water and hitting the green and having a chance at an eagle or a sure birdie.

On Thursday or Friday, indecision is understandable.

But when you are playing for the Masters championship on Sunday and you are three shots in arrears and running out of holes, there is nothing to be indecisive about. Your choice is clear.

Beck had driven the ball about 10 yards farther than Langer. Langer decided to lay up, to hit the ball short of the water, not risk disaster.

But Langer didn’t have to take risks. He didn’t have to bump and raise and call for cards. He had all the blue chips, a three-shot lead. He could sit there and say, “I’ll play these.”

When he laid up, there was all the more reason for Beck to go for it.

He didn’t. He laid up. He conceded the tournament to Langer without a fight.

What we should do now is send Beck to the blackboard to write in chalk 100 times: “You don’t play the Masters for second place.”

There is the famous quote from the original America’s Cup race, when the palace courtiers tell the Queen the Americans have won the yacht race and she wants to know, “Who was second?” There is an embarrassed silence and finally one of her equerry speaks up: “Your Majesty, there is no second.”

There’s none at the Masters, either. It’s not a game for money-list players. You win. Or you lose.

You don’t win the Masters with timidity. Langer had put a chip on his shoulder and Chip didn’t dare knock it off.

Can you imagine Arnold Palmer laying up in that situation? Ben Hogan? Can you picture Babe Ruth going up with the game on the line and the team needing a three-run homer--and he bunts? Can you picture Dempsey with his man on the ropes, backing off and dancing around?

Beck had to go for it in that situation. He has three shots to make up and three more holes to play. You get in a position like this once in a lifetime. You haul out the wood and go for an eagle. Or settle for a chicken. Beck laid an egg.

Beck is a kind of strange, ethereal young man who says “Golly” and “Gee, whiz!” a lot and sometimes seems to be playing the game just for a living. I mean, it beats driving a truck. He went 10 years on the tour without winning a tournament and it didn’t seem to bother him greatly. He finished respectably on the money list. He was steady, unspectacular, likable--but not very exciting.

A lot of people thought he was the wrong guy to be chasing Germany’s pride and joy Saturday. You needed someone with more fire. Maybe they were right.

In the press room later, Chip sought to explain his otherwise incomprehensible decision. “I stood there,” he said earnestly. “I had hit a really good drive, but I stood there and thought it was just marginal whether I could make it or not. I had hit the ball so well all day, but I thought it was still a little bit too much of a risk for me and I didn’t want to throw away the tournament on one shot.”

Not good enough, Chipper. You threw away the tournament on that shot anyway. Because, as a matter of fact, Chip undid whatever questionable strategy he had by hitting his subsequent approach shot over the green anyway, while Langer coolly put his in birdie range. It was like deciding to punt--and then getting it blocked.

It’ll never make a “Rocky” movie. Stallone wouldn’t want any part of this casting. Rambo, it ain’t.

Langer, a golfer with a face of iron and a will to match, had only Beck to conquer by then to get his second Masters green coat. Beck played into his hands.

The Masters has this haunted house of holes--11 through 13--they like to call “Amen Corner.” They should call it “Hell’s Kitchen.” They dub the holes “White Dogwood, “ “Golden Bell,” and “Azalea.” They should call them “Jack the Ripper,” “Rasputin,” and “Bluebeard.” They are not golf holes, they are serial killers.

The guy with one of the better chances to catch Langer was a young, loose-limbed striker of the ball named Dan Forsman. And Dan hit Amen Corner like a guy without a prayer. No. 12 is a 150-yard hell hole that looks pretty with all the azaleas and fuchsias and loblollies around it. But so did Clyde’s Bonnie. If it was human, No. 12 would be shooting up banks. It might have azaleas in the back--but it has water in front.

Dan Forsman whipped out a seven-iron and dropped it right in that water. Then he took a drop. And plopped another one in the water. He ended up with a seven on the par three--a quadruple bogey. He went from one shot back of the leader to five shots behind.

It’s not rare. No. 12 has done that to lots of guys. Tom Weiskopf took a 13 here. Some years ago, Ken Still, playing in his first Masters, took a seven. He was railing against the vagaries of the hole when I caught up with him. “Ken,” I told him, “I have no trouble with that hole.” “What do you mean?” he screamed. “You take an eight-iron and vex yourself,” I told him. “I take a five-iron, I hit it down short of the water. Then I wedge it up onto the green, putt it in the leather and take my 4 and walk off the green.”

Ken was chasing me with an eight-iron when I yelled at him: “You know, if you ever come up to Sunday leading the Masters by three shots on that hole, that’s not a bad strategy.”

But laying up when you’re behind and the tournament is slipping away is something no self-respecting pro would ever do. You don’t get an Army like Palmer’s laying up. As that general said, “If I advance, follow me. If I retreat, kill me.”

Beck retreated, sheathed his sword. They asked him polite questions during the interview later. But what you really wanted to do was look at Beck and scream: “Chipper, what in hell were you thinking of? Did you think this was the Nestle Invitational?”

He can tell his grandkids he finished second in the Masters. He won’t want to tell them how. Think about this: In 1935, in this tournament, Gene Sarazen, trailing by three strokes with four holes to play, took a four-wood out on this hole and sank it for a two to win the tournament. It was celebrated in song and in verse as “the golf shot heard ‘round the world.”

Beck’s shot will be heard ‘round the world, too. In Germany, they will hoist the Beck’s and drink toasts to it.