Teed Off

---

When he made a bogey on the 18th hole of the 101st United States Open last Sunday, Mark Brooks blew it.

When he missed a bogey on the 18th hole of the 101st United States Open last Sunday, Stewart Cink also blew it... but we didn't expect it to matter that much, so it didn't seem so bad.

When he made a bogey on the 18th hole of the 101st United States Open last Sunday, Retief Goosen blew it too. Turns out, though, that his blow rather unblew Brooks blow, while simultaneously blowing-up Cink's to gargantuan proportions.

If all of this confuses you, don't worry - it should. It's golf.

Golf: the most frustrating, silly, intricate, difficult, waste-of-time game ever.

And - unfortunately - also the most addicting.

Not only to play, but also to watch... especially when you get to witness a comedy of errors like the one (or, three, to be exact) that occurred on the final hole of the final round of the biggest tournament in the world, the U.S. Open. Something as uncommon and freakish as catching Janet Reno smiling.

Here's how it worked.

Brooks teed off the par-4 final hole with a score of 5-under, which made him the co-leader. Brooks then managed to reach the green in just two shots, but he didn't manage to putt the ball in until three shots after that. His three-putt bogey dropped him to 4-under and made him look silly.

Following Brooks in the final twosome of the day, Cink and Goosen also teed off 18th at 5-under par for the tournament. Cink needed three shots to reach the green, his third being a chip from the rough at the left side of the putting surface. Goosen, however, reached the green in two shots, like Brooks, so he simply needed to two-putt from 15 feet away to make par and tie or win.

Cink's near-miss for par (his fourth shot) told Goosen that a two-putt would indeed win it for him outright. A sick Cink, thinking he was sunk, then proceeded to miss his bogey putt and finished at 3-under par (but no one thought this would be a factor, believing that Goosen would never three-put from a free throw line away).

Still confused? Apparently so was Goosen.

Instead of playing it safe and lagging (leaving the ball short so as to set oneself up for a easy second putt along the same line), Goosen, the soft-spoken South African, blasted his first putt past the hole. The crowd muttered, the announcers whispered louder than usual in disbelief. Goosen then goosed his second putt, and it skidded right of the cup. This was the precise thing that Cink had done minutes before, and it made Goosen look silly for blowing a 'gimme' putt that would have given him the win. Cink suddenly looked silly now too, as his earlier miss took him out of the chance for an 18-hole playoff the following day.

Now, the pressure was really on Goosen. Forget about a victory; he had to make this putt to save his butt and tie him with Brooks, who, watching this debacle unfold on TV, had all but collected his third place check for $325,000 and left the golf course.

Goosen lined up, stroked, and watched the ball roll into the cup. (Tie ball game, playoff the next day - which Goosen wound up winning).

Darn.

I don't know about you, but I was hoping he'd miss it... because it would have made me feel much better.

Because I'm worn-out with routine, 300-yard tee shots. Because I'm bored with blasts out of sand traps that bounce their merry way all the way into the hole.

Because I'm tired of Tiger Woods and his like making it look easy.

Liars.

And because the day before, I went out and shot a 55... on 9 holes. I flopped around several greens like a mackerel, three-putting here, four-putting there - and getting angry everywhere. And unlike the guys playing under a microscope in the Open, I had no pressure on me - except that my 13-year-old kid brother and I had a Blizzard on the line. But I wasn't even worried about that, because he regularly filets me.

So, on Sunday I'm sitting there watching the Open, gawking over how good those guys are. Then, I recall how poorly I played the day before (and every other time before that), and I slowly start stewing because I realize I'll never be that good... at anything. Jealously sets in (hey, I'm a guy), and I start hoping that everyone screws up. Because if I'm not any good in golf, I don't want anyone to be. (Another guy thing.)

And for one hole, for a while, nobody was any good at golf - at least on the green. Professional golfers, turns out, are (very rich, sometimes normal) human. The world was astounded; I was ecstatic.

And itching to get out there and slap that stupid little white ball around another 55 times. I had a new level of patience and appreciation for the game - figuring (with golf math) that if three pros three-putt the final hole to blow their chances at winning the Open outright, I should give myself nine putts (or so) before I blow my stack next time.

---