Second-Best Has Champion’s Feel

History isn’t always only about the winner.

Sometimes it is about the guy who took the punch.

Sometimes it is about the guy who hits the ground five hours after everyone thought he would, the guy with the wobbly knees and dazed eyes and fairway-sized heart.

Sometimes history is about the guy who celebrates life by not dying until the one making that history has fallen atop him, exhausted.

Sometimes history is not about Tiger Woods, it is about Bob May.

That’s what it was about at Valhalla Golf Club on Sunday in a final round of a PGA Championship that traveled from daylight to dusk, through weeds and wonderment, with gasps and greatness.

Tiger Woods won after a 72-hole tie and a three-hole playoff to officially become the best young golfer in history.

Bob May lost while his old teacher was locked in his office at Bel-Air Country Club, weeping.

Woods won after dueling partner and fellow Orange County native May hole for hole, birdie for birdie, throwing his best shots for so long, and with such force, that in the end he was too exhausted to even pump his fist.

May lost while wearing a shirt you buy in a gift shop.

Woods, 24, became the second player in history to win three of the four major tournaments in golf’s Grand Slam in the same year.

May, 31, still hasn’t won a PGA tournament in any year.

Woods’ performance here, particularly after trailing by one stroke with two holes left in regulation, especially after fighting twice out of a bug-swarmed and trash-strewn rough in the playoffs, will be remembered forever.

But Bob May should not be forgotten.

Not the way he would smile that schoolteacher’s smile, then lean over and sink a putt that would send Woods stalking to another hole.

Not the way he would compliment Tiger on a shot, then watch him glare.

With his receding hairline and plain face and saddle shoes, Bob May is the anti-Tiger.

They grew up 20 minutes apart in Orange County--Woods in Cypress, May in La Habra--but worlds away.

While Woods grew up with a father who taught him to play golf before he could read, May’s family didn’t even know the rules.

May received a set of starter clubs from an aunt one Christmas when he was a child, and told his parents he wanted golf lessons.

“I said, ‘There is such a thing?’ ” Muriel May recalled.

Woods started his career on a regulation naval base course.

May began at the Big Tee driving range in Buena Park.

Woods made appearances on TV shows as a child prodigy. May practiced his chip shots over the backyard pool.

He and his father would have daily contests, with the loser required to go diving for balls.

“I got wet a lot,” Jerry May said.

Watching Woods battle May Sunday should have been like watching a tire battle a soda can.

But for one glorious day, May refused to buckle, shooting a 66 to make up Woods’ one-shot lead and then forcing Woods to sink a short putt on the third playoff hole to clinch it.

“You played incredible,” Woods whispered upon throwing an exhausted arm around May afterward.

May didn’t have time to answer. He was busy offering autographed balls to the two policemen who accompanied the pair on their round.

“Bob May, you’re a champion,” shouted one fan just before the Wanamaker Trophy was handed to Woods.

The man with no chance had cheering sections everywhere.

His parents, who couldn’t see their son play through the crowds, were cheering in a players’ lounge filled with players who were cheering with them.

“I guess we [were] yelling at the TV,” said Jerry May. “I don’t know if that usually happens in there, but . . .”

Also cheering were people in May’s current home of Las Vegas, where wife Brenda threw a party for anyone who wanted to sit with a woman scheduled to have a baby next month.

Then there were the cries around TV sets from family and friends back where Jerry owned a gas station on the corner of Placentia Avenue and Yorba Linda Boulevard for 30 years.

Tom Lasorda was a regular customer, so you can bet, if he was watching, he probably was screaming for Woods to be penalized for a rules violation.

None of which compared to the noise being made at the usually staid Bel-Air Country Club. Eddie Merrins, the longtime pro there, was May’s golf teacher when May attended Hacienda Heights Los Altos High.

“People here were glued to the TV, in the grill and the locker room and everywhere,” Merrins said by phone. “I once walked into the bathroom and heard a huge cheer, it was that loud.”

During the final holes, when it was obvious that May was not going to quit until somebody stuck a cleat through his heart, Merrins locked himself in his office.

There, with just his TV and his memories, Merrins cried.

“Watching what was happening, it was very emotional,” Merrins said. “It was as good as it gets.”

One of the thousands of fans pushing May through the humidity and the pressure had another expression for it.

“Bob, you’re living my dream!” he shouted. May smiled. He knew the feeling.

Saturday night, lying in bed before experiencing what many thought would be a national embarrassment, he dreamed golf.

“I never played so much golf in my sleep,” he said. “I played the same holes again and again.”

One problem. He never finished any of them.

Then he awoke, drove to the course, lifted his clubs out of the trunk of his car and experienced a first-hole reality. May drove the ball 270 yards. Tiger drove it 54 yards farther.

“He drove it over the trees and I’m thinking, nobody here does that,” May said. “I knew then this day would be something different.”

There is a reason that Woods went to Stanford and glory, and May went to Oklahoma State and the European tour.

But after five holes Sunday, darned if anybody could figure out what that reason was.

“I told my caddie, ‘If we could beat up on Old Man Par bad enough today, we might have a chance,’ ” May said.

Old Man Par. How can you not root for a golfer who still talks like that?

So everyone did, from Louisville to Los Angeles, as May held firm when they entered the back nine in a tie.

Woods would sink a birdie putt. May would match it.

Woods would sink a birdie putt and shake his fist. May would calmly match it.

May ended the round with a 20-foot downhill putt that forced Woods to make a five-footer for the playoff.

At which point, the miracle’s shoulders grew heavy.

On the first playoff hole, May hit two consecutive shots into the rough while Woods was hitting two great shots before literally chasing a 20-foot birdie putt into the cup.

Woods finally had grabbed perhaps the most important lead of his career, and in the final two holes, even the hero of the newest tall tale couldn’t shake it loose.

Afterward, Bob May smiled that schoolteacher’s smile.

“I don’t think people expected me to do what I did,” he said.

Nobody, apparently, but the only person on the course who could prove everybody wrong.

You know all those Saturday night dream holes Bob May never finished? They were waiting for him on Sunday.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.