Woods limps his way into U.S. Open history
SAN DIEGO - It's as self-evident as it can be, the fact that golf isn't like football or hockey or something. You see football players in big casts, playing on, and hockey players with gashes in their face, stitching fresh from a battlefield surgeon and cotton up their nose to keep the blood from messing up their uniforms and the ice. And so it goes in many sports. But golfers function like windup toys, if at all, with any kind damage or pain, such is the demand of the golf swing for harmony and precision. And so it was one of the great performances in U.S. Open history that Tiger Woods plodded on at Torrey Pines, flinching, dragging his leg, grimacing, fighting a painful knee so recently repaired by the doctors. When would the stabbing pain hit?
He did it for 72 holes, and he's not done yet. There's the 18-hole playoff with Rocco Mediate on Monday, after Woods engineered a birdie at the par-5 final hole to tie Mediate, himself heroic in the past with a back that should have made him a case study in medical school.
Win or lose, Woods has trudged into history, taking his place among those sacrifical few who forced their way through the U.S. Open, dominating pains and fears that would keep the less driven frozen in time.
From a different era, there was Olin Dutra, in the 1934 Open at Merion in Philadelphia. On his way to Philadelphia, Dutra stopped in Detroit to pick up his brother, Mortie, and somehow became infected with ameobic dysentery. He was laid up in a Detroit hotel room for three days, and by the time he reached Philadelphia, he had lost 15 pounds, he was weak and drawn, and he hadn't played golf in 10 days. He wasn't strong enough to play golf and he had been off the game too long. He didn't stand a chance. But his brother wouldn't let him withdraw.
The '34 Open belonged to Gene Sarazen and Bobby Cruickshank, two of the greatest players of the day. Dutra trailed by eight shots after 36 holes. He was eating sugar cubes and taking pills, trying to hold on. Then he closed the gap, shot a final-round 72 and beat Sarazen by a shot and Cruickshank and a bunch of others by two.
Dutra and his minor miracle were almost forgotten, and they paled in comparison anyway, to Ben Hogan in the 1950 Open at Merion.
People at one tee in the final round remember Hogan dragging himself, stiff-legged, over to the ropes. This was in the second round, back in the days of the 36-hole final day.
“My God, Harry, I don't think I can make it,” Hogan said. “My knees have locked up.”
“You can do it, Ben,” the guy said.
Tiger Woods' problem was pain. Hogan's was killing pain, not long removed from near-death.
This was just some 15 months after Hogan was nearly killed when a bus crashed head-on into his car. The first thing that saved his life was personal heroism. He'd thrown himself across his wife, Valerie, in the passenger seat. The engine was driven deep into the driver's seat, where he had been an instant earlier.
The other thing that saved his life was a medical miracle, and his own indominable spirit.
This is what happened to Hogan in the crash: Broken collarbone, broken ankle, broken ribs, double fracture of the pelvis. It was the kind of medical chart usually followed by the initials DOA.
A short time later, a blot clot formed in Hogan's leg. Doctors tied off surround blood vessels to keep the clot from breaking free and traveling to his heart and killing him. But then his legs atrophied. Golf was no longer the question. The question was, would he ever walk again?
He started with small steps in his home, around a table. Incredibly, only about 15 months later, he was at Merion, trying to win the U.S. Open. He had to soak in hot water to ease his pain, and he wrapped his legs in bandages from ankle to hip. Still, they almost locked on him. He caught his breath with that friend, then managed to go on.
Remember the great picture -- Hogan hitting a 1-iron to Merion's final green, then two-putting for a par and forcing a playoff with Lloyd Mangrum and George Fazio the next day. Then came Hogan's only real break. The U.S. Golf Association had reduced playoffs from 36 holes to 18. He probably couldn't have lasted 36. He won in 18.
Ken Venturi's legs weren't locking up in the 1964 U.S. Open. He could barely swing them. The heat was intense, the humidity enervating. He started his legs moving, and they carried him, muscle memory, more or less. He seemed to be staring vacantly.
Venturi missed short putts at the 17th and 18th. His hands were shaking. He was wilting. This was still the third round, and there was still one more to go that day. In the locker room, a doctor advised him to quit. He refused. He took tea and salt tablets, and went back out. A doctor followed him with ice packs.
Somehow, Venturi was playing brilliantly -- two birdies, two bogeys, 14 pars, for a 70. When he holed the final putt, he let his putter fall from his weakened hands, and raised his arms.
“My God,” Venturi said. “I've won the U.S. Open.”
Raymond Floyd was playing with Venturi. He picked the ball from the cup and handed it to Venturi. Floyd was crying.
And the last of the group was Hubert Green, in 1977 at Southern Hills. Green had no injuries, no limps, no locked legs. What he had, after police officials came to him in that final round, was a choice: He could quit playing and ensure his safety, or he could continue playing and take his chances. Someone had called in a death threat.
Green was flanked by a goodly supply of police, but there was no way anyone could really protect him on a golf course jammed with people. He knew that.
It could have been a crank. Maybe a gambler was trying for the big edge. On the other hand, maybe it wasn't a crank. Green played on, wondering whether his next step would be his last.
Apparently it was a crank call. Nothing ever came of the threat. Not that anyone knew. But Green played on, shutting it out. It wasn't until after he won, and was taken away, that the world knew what he'd just gone through.
So Tiger Woods did not endure the pains of Dutra or Hogan, the fuzzy, wilted world of Venturi, or the anguish of Green. But he had his own private pain and doubts, and he has taken his place with them in U.S. Open history.
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