Champions Find Success Fleeting

When you win the British Open, they hand you the Claret Jug and instant fame. They do not give you keys that unlock secret doors to everlasting success.

To be sure, the player who wins the Open Championship receives a nice cash reward and a special moment, an introduction at the awards ceremony as “the champion golfer of the year,” but the last two players who enjoyed this distinction might very well be asking:

Is that all there is?

Two years ago at Royal St. George’s, unheralded Ben Curtis stepped out of the shadows and won the British Open on his first try. Curtis has played 42 tournaments since and has missed 26 cuts.

It got so bad that after Curtis missed the cut at the Masters, he sought help from swing coach Hank Haney and his coach at Kent State, Herb Page.

“I was just in a bad rut,” Curtis said.

He has company. The defending British champion, Todd Hamilton, followed Curtis’ shocking victory with one of his own last year at Royal Troon, defeating Ernie Els in a four-hole playoff.

But the 39-year-old Hamilton, like Curtis, hasn’t been able to follow up on his tournament of a lifetime. In six full-field events after Troon in 2004, Hamilton’s best was a tie for 12th at the International, although he did tie for sixth in the small-field American Express Championships.

In 20 events so far this year, Hamilton has six missed cuts, has no top-10 finishes and only last week at the John Deere Classic, in his best tournament of the year, tied for 13th.

Curtis, 28, said he and Hamilton had shared notes on what it’s like to win the British Open and then bump heads in the rut.

“Golf is a funny game,” Curtis said.

“I respect Todd a lot.... He’s a great player, and he will be for a long time. It’s just, when you win a major like that, I think expectations get a lot higher.”

Hamilton says he is hoping for the best this week.

“You know, I don’t have to win it back to back, but that would be great. It would be nice having the trophy and traveling with the trophy for a year. But I would like to put in a halfway decent defense.”

Anonymity, as it relates to the champion of the British Open, is a relatively new concept. The Open does not usually open its arms to welcome just anyone, although Paul Lawrie’s upset victory at Carnoustie in 1999 followed the concept straight down the line, and he predated Curtis and Hamilton.

Ian Baker-Finch won in 1991 at Royal Birkdale and was judged to be well on his way to several more major championships. It didn’t work out that way, although Baker-Finch did have some success before falling apart completely.

Few unheralded champions emerge from this tournament, which has been won in recent history by all of the greatest players of the time: Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Tom Watson, Johnny Miller, Seve Ballesteros, Greg Norman, Nick Faldo, Nick Price, Tiger Woods and Els.

And now Curtis and Hamilton.

Both are well-liked and genuine in their handling of what has become a somewhat sticky situation: Why haven’t they done better?

Hamilton said he overextended himself at the end of last year and failed to build in enough time to rest and recuperate.

“I traveled a lot at the end of the year in the so-called silly season,” he said. “I wasn’t playing well. I had come off a year in Japan, and I was used to playing about 20 or 22 events and I think I played 35 [worldwide] events last year. That was a lot of golf for me.

“I had about 2 1/2 weeks to kind of recharge, go through Christmas, try new equipment, practice, get ready for the season, and that wasn’t enough time for me. I realized that I didn’t enjoy playing golf as much as I thought I did, grinding it out day after day.”

Curtis, meanwhile, says he might be turning it around, after a third-place finish at the Western Open, where he won $340,000 -- after having won $22,425 all year previously.

Besides not driving the ball far -- he ranks 165th in distance -- Curtis also isn’t scoring well. His 73.08 average puts him 193rd on the tour.

“I’ve worked really hard for the last several months and ... I haven’t played as well as I’ve liked and I just never put anything together.

“I am in a slump, haven’t played well all year. It’s a long year, and I just try to stay positive and try to work through the problems and keep my head high.

“All you need is a couple of decent weeks and you never know what can happen.”

Curtis should know about that because he’s lived it.

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Nicklaus, 65, playing his last major championship, will play the first two rounds in a group with Watson and Luke Donald. Woods, who like Nicklaus will play the first round with a morning tee time and the second with an afternoon tee time, is grouped with Jose Maria Olazabal and Robert Allenby.