THE LUCKIEST GOLFER

The Miami Herald ^ | Tue, Jul. 22, 2003

[presidio9]

With all due respect to PGA Tour golfer Ben Curtis, the title, ''Champion golfer of the year,'' seems an awkward fit. Mr. Curtis is an unknown rookie who walked away with the claret jug on Sunday in the British Open.

The Open, one of golf's four big tournaments -- or majors -- is intentionally designed as a grueling test. Playing conditions are awful -- it often is cold, blustery and wet. Fairways are pinched to the width of a traffic lane, the rough is knee-deep, and greens are as slick as a marble tabletop.

Usually, the Open identifies the golfer who is the best player, has control of his emotions and the patience of Job. Sunday's final round began with Mr. Curtis and some of the world's best players, including Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh, Thomas Borjn, David Love III and Sergio Garcia, bunched within two strokes of each other. By day's end, Mr. Curtis emerged victorious because he shot the day's best round, a 69. He also won because in the course of the week, he suffered fewer ''unlucky'' breaks. This happens when course conditions are so severe that excellent shots aren't always rewarded and bad shots get ''lucky'' bounces. Organizers should ponder if the 2003 Open put too high a premium on luck.

[So Cal Rocket]

BS.. you make your own breaks. Keep the ball in the fairway and on the green and you won't have to worry about a "lucky" break.

[discostu]

What a vast collection of whining. I especially like "excellent shots aren't always rewarded", excellent shots are the result of proper analysis of the conditions and are ALWAY rewarded. Shots that seemed excellent but then went awry weren't excellent.

[headsonpikes]

I wonder how Annika would have done in The Open.

;^)

[thepainster]

Agree, eveybody gets good bounces and bad bounces. Over the course of 72 holes it pretty much evens out. The kid putted great all week. In the end that is what made the difference, as it usually does.

[Henchster]

Whoever wrote this article either didn't watch/doesn't understand golf/is a complete idiot.

Curtis handled the pressure of being in the lead on Sunday at a major, stumbled, composed himself, and made a clutch putt on 18 that he knew he needed to have a chance. It turns out he did need it.

Guess what? Bjorn, Woods, Love, Els, Perry, etc., all choked when given the chance to catch Curtis. They either couldn't handled the pressure, or couldn't make the shots.

Curtis earned that title in the best possible way, but outgunning the top guns of golf at a course which he had never played before the week, in conditions he admitted he had almost no experience playing in.

Francis Ouimet - 1913 U.S. Open. That's the last time something like this happened. I hope Curtis turns out to be a consistent tour winner to silence the critics, and I think he will.

[ken5050]

Correctomundeo..what a load of crap....Bjorn did a "great" job with that double bogey, right....and the putt that Curtis made on 18, for his par..man, that was no gimmee....what was it 8 feet?...He was a tad lucky, I woudl say, in that at the time he didn;t know that Bjorn had just given back two strokes...if Curtis was in the last pair, and needed to make that putt for the championship, well, then, he might have felt the tension a bit more..but it's marvelous for the game of golf...I saw most of the tournament ont he TV, and I'm so sick of all Tiger, all the time...

[discostu]

Are you kidding? Do they even play ladies golf at that course? Too brutal. Although shorter drives (more importantly drives that don't spend as much time in the air) would offer some slight defense against that wind, in the end just too nasty. They really need some desalination plants and a sprinkler system out there, there's no reason for an island to have yellow grass.

[presidio9]

As she demonstrated at the much easier Colonial, she would have thoroughly embarassed herself.

[LetsRok]

The kid putted great all week. In the end that is what made the difference, as it usually does.

As they say. "Drive for show, putt for dough."

[Ol' Sox]

Obviously, the writer neither plays golf nor is he a student of the game. In addition, the writer did not do a lick of research which would have turned up the fact that Mr. Curtis was the first to arrive at the course early the previous week, played more practice rounds on the course than anyone else and eagerly sought "local knowlege" from course officials while practicing. The winner deserved to win.

Aren't we all getting sick and tired of professional bull$hit artists writing the "news"? Even golf isn't safe from these clymers.

[DoughtyOne]

Luck is the secret ingrediant of every golfer's game. On this course, during this tournament, his game was better than anyone else's. I'm not going to discount his achievement. He deserves the recognition of having won the tournament without qualifiers.

[razorback-bert]

72-72-70-69


All luck!

[RonF]

Crap. As in most championships, the prize went to the competitor who made the fewest mistakes. It won't take you 3 shots to get up from the bunker to the green if you don't shoot the ball into the bunker. You don't get penalized for a lost ball if you don't shoot it off the fairway. You don't have to make spectacular shots if you don't make dumb ones. If you get 5 shots up on the field, you can give away 4 and still win. This guy won because he was the best golfer in the field over 4 days.

[Mr. Bird]

Geez, did someone on the Herald's editorial staff lose some money this weekend? An axiom of golf is to never begrudge the lucky breaks, because there are plenty of unlucky breaks to offset them. Was Curtis lucky when Garcia holed out an approach shot for par on Saturday, saving himself from a certain double bogey? Or when Woods drained a bunker shot on the same day?

Curtis is not the champion because he had the low Sunday round. He's the champion because he had the low four-day score, and deserves all of the accolades that go with it.

I will agree that the powers that be are falling into a very bad habit of tricking out courses too much. But this year's British was subject to abnormal weather that made it much more difficult. You can't plan for that any more than you can line up your shot from 165 yards and say, "ok, this one's going in".

[TomB]

What a vast collection of whining.

Gee, you can't tell who posted this story, can you?

;-)

[Sgt_Schultze]

The only "luck" the kid experienced was timing. He had the good fortune to post the low number first. He played the same course as Tiger, Vijay, Sergio and all the best in the world rankings, and under the same conditions. His game held up the best - period. When push came to shove, and the best in the world all had a chance to contest for a playoff, they failed.

[dead]

The author's an idiot, but that course, for all the hype, looked like a goat path.

Haven't they invented sprinklers in England yet?

[presidio9]

Aren't we all getting sick and tired of professional bull$hit artists writing the "news"? Even golf isn't safe from these clymers.

At least they didn't insinuate that the organizers were racists.

[kb2614]

"With all due respect to PGA Tour golfer Ben Curtis"

Doesn't sound like the author respects Ben Curtis at all.