Golf is a year-round game, even when it”s played at the highest levels. While the PGA Tour is beginning its four-tournament Fed Ex Cup playoffs and the LPGA Tour has just completed its biennial Solheim Cup Matches between Europe and the Americans, there are always alternatives to tournament play once the regular season is over.
One need only look at the golfing resumes of past greats such as Jack Nickalus, a six-time winner of the Australian Open, or Tom Watson, who won four times in Japan along with wins at the Hong Kong Open and the Australian Open, to realize that if you have game, then there”s always another tourney to play somewhere else.
Yet Jack Nickalus is not judged by past Australian Open titles. He is considered the greatest golfer of all time because of his 18 wins in major championships. It”s all about the majors. In the end, golfers such as Orville Moody or Shaun Micheel, both one-hit major wonders who won only once on tour, are often more highly regarded than multiple winners such as Bert Yancey, Frank Beard, Colin Montgomerie or Sergio Garcia, all of whom are majorless.
All this major talk got me to thinking about a foursome of golfers who came within a whisker of winning a major title, an event that would have been a career changer had they pulled it off. In some cases, it would have been the difference between a nice career and a Hall of Fame career. So allow me to tell you about my foursome of non-major winners who didn”t win the big one when they had a golden opportunity, resulting in perennial also-ran status.
Doug Sanders was an outstanding golfer from the Arnold Palmer-Jack Nicklaus era. Known as the “Peacock of the Fairway,” the dapperly dressed Sanders had 20 wins on tour. He won the 1956 Canadian Open as an amateur. A number of his 20 victories were nail-biters against the game”s best. He won the 1958 Western Open by one stroke over Dow Finsterwald. He took home the 1961 Eastern Open, beating Ken Venturi by one. He beat current Lake County resident Johnny Pott by two shots in the ”62 Oklahoma City Open. He beat Nicklaus in a playoff in Pensacola in 1965, and the following year Sanders won the Bob Hope in a playoff against Palmer. His final win on tour was the 1972 Kemper Open, sinking a 30-footer for birdie on the final green to beat Lee Trevino by one at Quail Hollow. In 1966 he finished in the top eight or better in all four major championships.
Missing from Sanders” resume was a major title. In the 1970 British Open at St. Andrews, Sanders needed to par the final hole to beat Nicklaus by one. He ripped a drive and had 70 yards left to the flagstick. His second shot found the green and his birdie putt came up 2 feet short. His 2-footer to win the Open Championship was like a bad extra point kick, wide and to the right. He lost to Nicklaus in an 18-hole playoff the following day by one. Missing that 2-footer, Sanders had to settle for a nice career instead of a place in the Hall of Fame.
Mike Donald was the classic journeyman some 25 years ago. He had one win to his name, the 1989 Anheuser-Busch Classic. He never entered the British Open. In the 1990 Masters, he opened with a tournament-record 64, only to follow it up with an 82. He is best known for the quote, “When you shoot 76 on tour, half the players are glad. The other half wished you would have shot 77.” At the 1990 U.S. Open, Donald held the 54-hole lead. Also-ran Hale Irwin sunk a 60-foot putt on the final green on Sunday, doing a victory lap while high-fiving dozens of spectators. Some two hours later, Donald shot 71 to Irwin”s 67 and the two were tied atop the leader board. In the 18-hole playoff the next day, Irwin and Donald remained tied after 18 holes. Sudden-death ensued and Irwin birdied the 91st hole of the Open to win. Donald returned to the world of the journeyman, Irwin had a third National Open title, and instead of getting a 10-year exemption, Donald was off the tour by 1994, done in by a 60-foot birdie putt.
Only the most avid of golf fans had ever heard of Frenchman Jean van de Velde when the British Open returned to Carnoustie in 1999. Van de Velde, the European Tour”s rookie of the year in 1989 and the 1993 Roma Masters champ, putted brilliantly all week long at Carnoustie. Standing on the final tee on Sunday, he held a three-shot lead over Justin Leonard and Paul Lawrie. A crazily aggressive drive on 18 somehow avoided the water. Needing to get down in five shots from 175 yards to win the Open title, Jean attacked the green with his second shot. It hit the bleachers and went backward by some 50 yards. He chunked his next shot into the water. His fourth stroke was the penalty and his fifth landed in the sand. He got up and down from the bunker to record a triple-bogey seven and found himself in a three-way tie. Lawrie won the playoff. Jean van de Velde had let the Claret jug slip through his hands in a most bizarre way. He was off the European Tour by 2003.
Five years before the van de Velde collapse, Jesper Parnevik came to the 18th hole at Turnberry with a two-stroke lead in the British Open. An eccentric sort with four European Tour wins, five American PGA Tour wins and three appearances in the Ryder Cup, Parnevik was equally known for eating volcanic dust, wearing purple slacks and a necktie under his vest. His nickname on tour was “Spaceman.” He was very public about the fact that he never, ever looked at the scoreboard during a tournament. Hitting his second shot into the 18th green, Parnevik decided that he needed a birdie. He attacked the sucker pin, came up short and made bogey from the greenside rough. Moments later, Nick Price made a 60-footer for eagle on the par-5 17th hole to take a one-stroke lead. One par later and Price was the Open champion. Nowadays, Parnevik is best known in social circles for introducing his children”s nanny, Elin Nordegren, to her future ex-husband, Tiger Woods.
Jesper Parnevik had a solid career, but he ended up majorless. Jean van de Velde and Mike Donald would have been remembered in golf history for an improbable major win. Instead, they are barely remembered. Doug Sanders would be in the Hall of Fame had he made a final 2-footer to win the 1970 British Open. In the end, Sanders, van de Velde, Donald and Parnevik don”t have major titles to their name whereas Rich Beem, Todd Hamilton, Ben Curtis and Shaun Micheel do. In the end, Micheel came through at a major moment while Sanders did not. Golf is a lot like life. You get good breaks and bad breaks. You just never know what impact all of this will have on you when it happens. In retrospect, the impact can be major.
