There always has been a connection between sports and numbers. Because most team sport athletes wear jersey numbers, there is a connotation to certain ones. During the 1990s, kids had to wear the No. 23 on their youth or school-oriented basketball team as a tribute to Michael Jordan. Quarterbacks are often identified by the numbers 12 and 16. Bart Starr was 12 while Joe Montana was 16. When I was playing basketball as a kid, I always gravitated to the number 13. Most people didn’t want that number because it was considered unlucky, but I liked to wear it as a tribute to Wilt Chamberlain. It wasn’t unlucky for Dan Marino either.
However, never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that the number 297 would come up as a point of reference for much of anything. The number 297 was the winning score Cyril Walker shot in the 1924 United States Open at Oakland Hills just outside Detroit. Then again, he could have shot 299 and he would have still beaten runner-up Bobby Jones. And while I do peruse the World Golf Rankings on a weekly basis, I have to admit I have never gone out of my way to find out who is the 97th-ranked golfer in the world let alone the 197th or the 297th. Yet during the past two weekends on the PGA Tour, 297 has been a most noteworthy number. It just takes a lot of great golf and some special sudden-death playoff nerves.
James Hahn of Alameda won the Northern Trust Los Angeles Open two weekends ago in a playoff over Dustin Johnson and Paul Casey. Both Johnson and Casey have spent reasonable amounts of time in the top 10 of the world rankings. Both were on the comeback trail in Los Angeles that weekend. Johnson had been on a self-imposed exile since the summer of 2014 while Casey had been plagued by injuries during the last few years. As for James Hahn, he was one of those ultimate “bubble boys” who floundered on the outer reaches of the PGA Tour. On a circuit that has 125 exempt golfers based on the previous year’s performance, Hahn was ranked 125th in Fed Ex Cup points during the 2013-14 wraparound schedule. His world golf ranking, which includes not only PGA Tour members but also rates members of the European, Japan, Australia-Asian, and Sunshine (South Africa) Tours, had Hahn’s rank in the world at 297th.
On a blustery afternoon when many of the big names on the leader board were going south, Hahn hung in there, made a crucial up-and-down on the difficult 18th hole by using a hybrid for chipping purposes, and recorded a 72-hole total of 6-under-par. At the time it didn’t seem like the winning number, but then Sergio Garcia made two bogeys over the final two holes, Dustin Johnson missed a very makeable short birdie putt on the 18th, and the three-way sudden-death playoff was on. Repeating the 18th hole, pars tied among the threesome. On the drivable par-4 10th hole, Casey was in the driver’s seat with a perfect shot in the fairway. His pitch from the fairway was mediocre at best and he two-putted for par. Hahn and Johnson were in the deep rough and par seemed like a very good number. Hahn chopped out a wedge and hit it to an amazing 12 feet from the flagstick. Johnson topped him and hit it to 5 feet. Both made birdies, Casey was eliminated, and suddenly par didn’t seem like a very good number.
Although Hahn was outside of Johnson on the third playoff hole, he made a 32-foot putt for a birdie-two while Dustin pulled his 15-footer to the left, resulting in one of the most unexpected victories of the season. James Hahn was the L.A. Open champ at a course called “Hogan’s Alley.” James Hahn would no longer be a bubble boy. He would be exempt on the PGA Tour through the end of the 2017 season. He was going to the Masters. He jumped up the world rankings. He would no longer be 297th. And to top it off, his first child, a daughter, would be born earlier this week.
When the new rankings came out that following Monday morning, 43-year-old Padraig Harrington of Ireland, a three-time major champion, was cast in the unenviable position of 297th in the world rankings. Harrington had been as low as third in the world in 2009. No. 1 was Tiger Woods and No. 2 was Phil Mickelson. Yet hard times had fallen on Padraig’s golf game and he was without a victory of consequence since the 2009 PGA Championship at Oakland Hills, of all places. Unlike Walker in 1924, he didn’t shoot 297 to win.
Harrington was getting older. He told David Feherty in a colorful interview that the outlawing of square grooves had hurt his game more than any other player on tour. His putter began to misbehave. A chronic tinkerer with his clubs, swing and golf game, one could never truly tell if Harrington was getting closer to returning to world class status or if he was getting farther away. Yet he always plugged onward. And he was always pleasant and nice.
Harrington started the year with zero exempt status on the PGA Tour. He could accept sponsor’s invitations into tour events. He accepted one into last week’s Honda Classic. He was atop the leader board during round two, faltered during a rain-delayed third round, and was four shots back with just nine holes left during Sunday’s final round that was completed Monday morning. After running off four straight birdies on the final nine while watching first Ian Poulter and then Patrick Reed throw away their leads in watery fashion, Harrington needed to merely par the final two holes to win. His fanned tee shot on the 17th drowned well short of the green and his double-bogey five put him one stroke back of rookie Daniel Berger. It was shades of Sergio Garcia at Los Angeles all over again. Yet Harrington righted the ship, made a clutch 16-foot putt for birdie on the 18th and the playoff with the 21-year-old Berger was on.
On the second playoff hole, Berger did what Harrington had done 45 minutes earlier and came up short into the water on the 17th. Harrington hit it to 3 feet and two putts later he was the Honda Open champ. He was in the Masters, he was exempt for the next two seasons, and one of the all-time class acts of professional golf was relevant again.
If you happen to be the gambling type, you might want to put a little bit of cash on Scotland’s Steve Webster. A 40-year-old on the European Tour, Webster has never played in the Masters or U.S. Open and his best major finish was a 24th in the 1995 British Open. He was low amateur that year, finishing ahead of Stanford University student Tiger Woods. He won the Italian Open in 2005 and the Portugal Masters in 2007. Maybe he has what it takes to win the Africa Open this week in Eastern Cape, South Africa. After all, there is something about that number 297.
