British Open drama makes Monday memorable
One of the simple pleasures of being a sports fan is rolling out of bed on a Monday morning and having something live to watch.
Every four years, when they hold the World Cup, it might be a soccer game, if you‘re one who has cultivated an interest in soccer. Usually it‘s an auto race though.
Every now and again, it does rain in Indianapolis in the summertime, or at least during late springtime, and then the famous 500-mile race gets rained out on Sunday, and they run it the next day. The last time it happened was 1997. Then on Monday it rained again after 15 laps. They finally got it on on Tuesday; by then not even the Fram oil filters guy cared.
Because NASCAR races just about every weekend — and because it rains in a lot of places where NASCAR races — it‘s usually a stock car race that gets pushed back to Monday by weather. But the Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400 isn’t nearly as meaningful as golf‘s British Open.
So it was cool to roll out of bed on Monday morning, click on the remote, and see guys in sweatshirts and other chilly weather gear playing big-time golf. The skies even were leaden here, just like at St. Andrews.
Ah, St. Andrews. The birthplace of the genteel game. The Old Course. "The place where it is said that the first Scottish shepherd swung the first crook and hit the first pebble into the first rabbit scrape, thereby inventing the game."
That‘s how the author and venerable golf writer Dan Jenkins described it in a novel I finally have gotten around to reading.
"You Gotta Play Hurt" is the story of one year of a sports magazine writer covering the major events. I just so happen to be at summertime in the tale, in July, when protagonist Jim Tom Pinch and his sportswriter pals (a couple of them female with long legs) are having sausage rolls at The Open after deadline.
"There is an old saying," Dan Jenkins writes, "that there are three kinds of British Opens: those played in Scotland, those played in England, and the one played at St. Andrews."
There is no more grandiose stage upon which to swing a crook at a pebble, although it should be said the Masters at Augusta National is solidly in the red numbers, too.
And so here it was, and so here he was: Adam Scott, the former UNLV standout, beginning the final round with a chance to win — first at the Masters, this time at the British Open, at St. Andrews in Scotland, the birthplace of golf.
On a Monday morning.
The idea was to get up with the roosters to watch Scott‘s round. But then the course marshal said we play Cox an extra $8.50 every month for a DVR, and a major golf tournament postponed by the "vagaries of British weather" (as the man in charge of the Claret Jug put it), seemed like the perfect reason to utilize the DVR that costs extra. The course marshal (my wife) always has the final word.
A little before I rolled out of bed, Adam Scott was tied for the lead with Zach Johnson.
He had made five birdies in the rain for a 31 on the front nine. He made another birdie on No. 10.
Then Scott made bogeys on 14, 15, 17.
The next time the announcers mentioned him was after Jordan Spieth rolled in a birdie putt that was long and clutch. Spieth was coming up to 18 when Mike Tirico cautioned that Adam Scott had made double bogey there a little while ago, that Scott had left one in the Valley of Sin.
The Valley of Sin is a deep, undulating swale that fronts the 18th green. A swale is a low place in a tract of land. A swale is a place where promising 31s on the front nine at St. Andrews are quickly forgotten.
So I would not be calling Dwaine Knight, UNLV‘s golf coach, to ask what he thought about Scott shooting 31 on the front side in the rain, when the pressure was on and mounting.
Adam Scott did not win his second major. He finished tied for 10th. Mike Tirico and the other announcers did not talk about the great UNLV team that had produced multiple PGA touring pros.
Jordan Spieth did not win the Claret Jug, either. The Grand Slam quest came up one stroke short under leaden Scottish skies. It seemed the announcers really wanted to him to win.
Zach Johnson — born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa — won.
He won it a three-man, four-hole playoff.
It made for dramatic Monday morning TV. I’m still seeing blue and yellow graphic arcs.
Oh — I almost forgot: Phil Mickelson was making a charge when he hooked his drive on the Road Hole onto a hotel balcony.
With all respect due the Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400, or any other stock car race postponed by inclement weather to Monday morning, this was better.
Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski
