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Alcohol is not truth serum, but sometimes the wetted tongue speaks with refreshing candor. On Sunday, in the aftermath of Mark O'Meara's victory in the British Open, a man in a dark blazer came up behind Brian Watts, who an hour before had lost to O'Meara in a four-hole playoff and was now sitting on a couch in the almost-deserted hospitality tent. The man handed Watts a champagne glass and filled it halfway. Watts, a Diet Coke man, gave the glass a dubious look. But he took a sip—celebrating, no doubt, his imminent escape from golf exile.

O'Meara, 41, became the oldest golfer to win two majors in the same year.    (Robert Beck)

Outside, on a bench by the clubhouse doors, caddie Jerry Higginbotham declined a glass of bubbly offered by a passing waiter. Higginbotham already had a glass of lager in his left hand and another tucked under the bench. In an exultant mood, he raised his glass and toasted himself. "I might have saved Mark O'Meara the British Open!" he crowed.

The waiter carrying the tray of champagne flutes was already out of earshot. He had crossed the driveway and was passing out drinks to a thirsty and clamoring crowd. Why all the champagne? Because this was a major championship that had given many participants—and spectators—reason to celebrate. Within an hour on Sunday, the Royal Birkdale Golf Club offered up no fewer than three 72nd-hole finishes as compelling as any in British Open history. Tiger Woods, a stroke off the lead, dropped a 30-foot birdie putt and arm-pumped his way across the 18th green. Seventeen-year-old Brit Justin Rose holed out a 45-yard pitch for birdie and tied for fourth, the best finish by an amateur since Frank Stranahan's second-place finish at Carnoustie in 1953. And Watts forced the playoff with one of the best long bunker shots ever made under pressure.

There were other developments last weekend that also merited a tip of the glass.

—An ultraexclusive gated community in Florida found itself three fourths of the way to the Grand Slam. (O'Meara, who also won the Masters in April, and U.S. Open champion Lee Janzen are both residents of Isleworth in Orlando.)

—For the second time this summer, the winner of a major had a lost ball reappear as he was walking back to hit another. (A spectator stumbled upon O'Meara's ball in the rough during the third round, saving him at least two strokes; Janzen hit a ball into a tree at San Francisco's Olympic Club in June but lucked out minutes later when it fell back to earth.)

—For the second time this summer, a four-round total of even par took the prize at a major. (At the Olympic Club tight fairways and fast greens humbled the field; at Royal Birkdale, deep rough and wind did.)

Ah, yes, the conditions. The weather in the British Isles has been on the wet and windy side this year. England's northwest shore is so soggy that hedgerows are spilling onto pavements, and articles left outdoors overnight turn into Chia pets. The days leading up to the Open were notable for squalls that whistled through the flags at Royal Birkdale. The rough was so thick that Tom Lehman lost six balls in eight holes during a Monday practice round and so tall that you could almost hide a Texan in it—specifically the defending champion from Dallas, Justin Leonard, who finished 17 over par for the tournament.

O'Meara escaped disaster on Saturday after a fan picked up his seemingly lost ball.    (Bob Martin)

Royal Birkdale is something like a maze in a British garden. Its twisting fairways are bordered by high, wild dunes, giving players the sense that they are making their way through an artfully contrived puzzle. Which, of course, they are. In last week's rain and wind, this par-70 links played more like a par-77 lynx, clawing players badly. The scores on Saturday, when the wind never dipped below 25 mph, were the worst: Janzen shot 80, Leonard 82, Phil Mickelson 85. Nick Price, a stroke off the lead after two rounds, signed for an 82 and retired to the clubhouse looking pale and worn.

Only on the opening day could the weather be called ideal, and the field celebrated with 27 subpar rounds, led by Woods and John Huston, who each shot 65. But the second round went to Royal Birkdale as morning rains soaked the course and afternoon winds raked it. Woods got around in 73 and O'Meara shot a splendid 68, but the day belonged to two golfers who had never been on a leader board at a major. The first was Rose, the rosy-cheeked boy from Hook, a town 40 miles southwest of London, who ditched school 18 months ago to play full-time amateur golf. He shot a 66 in Friday's gale, tying Stranahan (1950) and Woods (1996) for the lowest British Open round by an amateur. "My 66 was nowhere near as good," said Woods, "because mine was in calm weather."

The other interloper was Watts, a 32-year-old American who spends most of the year in Japanese hotel rooms, watching television and talking long distance to his wife, Debbye, who is raising their one-year-old son in Oklahoma City. This curious and unsatisfactory arrangement owes to Watts's success on the Japanese tour (he has won 11 tournaments and more than $4 million in five-plus years) and to his equally curious and unsatisfactory attempts to make it on the PGA Tour. (He finished 184th on the money list in 1991, his only year on that circuit.) Watts has been portrayed in the media (unfairly, according to his friends and family) as an ugly American who accumulates bags of yen while shunning Japanese food and culture. Watts says he eats whatever his hosts serve him—"Except the raw fish. It's just a mental block," he says—and even loads up the rice cooker whenever he's in Oklahoma City.

Watts dug his way out of a greenside bunker to force the playoff.    (Stephen Munday/Allsport)

But Watts has never denied that he would rather be playing in the U.S. Some suspect it was fish-out-of-water syndrome that caused him to snap in May at the Fuji Sankei Classic, where he drew a $1,500 fine and a possible suspension after intentionally hitting two balls into the ocean and putting with his pitching wedge for four holes to ensure that he missed the cut. (According to witnesses Watts was expressing his frustration with the course's grainy greens.) Asked about the incident, after he had shot 68-69 to take the second-round lead at Royal Birkdale, Watts politely slammed the lid on the cooker. "I made a mistake," he said, "and that's about it."

With his welcome perhaps wearing out in Japan, Watts had to feel more pressure than the weekend's other contenders. Victory in the British Open carries a five-year exemption for the PGA Tour, and all prize money counts toward the Tour's money list. In effect Watts came to Royal Birkdale as a hostage attempting to raise his own ransom.

O'Meara, on the other hand, seemed as relaxed as a pensioner at tea. Before he won the Masters, he was just one of the test-pattern personalities who toil quietly on Tour and end up rich (14 tournament wins and $8.8 million in prize money over 17 years, in O'Meara's case). He didn't register with golf fans until he began exerting an avuncular influence on another of his Isleworth neighbors, Woods. The two holidayed together in Ireland the week before the Open, playing golf and fishing, and it was easy to think of the 41-year-old O'Meara just as Tiger's older, unthreatening friend.

Woods started strong and finished strong, but couldn't overcome his windblown 77 in the third round.    (Bob Martin)

But sometimes laid-back can be mistaken for lying down, which O'Meara came dangerously close to doing in the third round. On Saturday, on the brutally long par-4 6th, his second shot found what the British call "the beige rough." Despite being just off the lead, O'Meara made only a cursory attempt to find his errant shot. He was heading back up the fairway for a drop—and a two-stroke penalty—when a spectator found the ball (stepped on it, actually) and picked it up. Higginbotham yelled frantically for O'Meara to return to the rough (thus his claim to have saved the Open for his boss). After O'Meara went back, he mostly smiled and shrugged while men in blazers conferred with each other. "I'm going to make a big number anyway," O'Meara told one official. "I'll do whatever you want."

In the end he got a huge break. Since the spectator, an "outside agency" under the rules, had picked up the ball, O'Meara was given a free drop near the point where his ball had been found. When two efforts to drop it on the steep slope did not produce a legal lie, he was told that he could place his ball in the rough. From that cushy lie, O'Meara pitched onto the green and two-putted for a five.

At the time O'Meara's hike through the hay suggested that he didn't think he could beat the elements. In retrospect it showed that he had the right temperament for Royal Birkdale—a wry detachment that did not so much overcome setbacks as ignore them. On Sunday, in a wind that made the pin flags merely flap instead of stiffen, O'Meara rode like a leaf on the tide of dramatic surges. Ahead of him Woods, who at 22 was scrapping for his second major championship, chipped in for birdie on 17 and thrilled the grandstands on 18 with the long putt that momentarily tied him for the lead. Rose then goosed the crowd with his pitch-in from the tall grass, his last shot as an amateur. (Rose's total of 282 tied him for fourth with Jim Furyk, Jesper Parnevik and Raymond Russell, and led him to announce that he was turning pro.)

In the end, though, it was O'Meara and Watts—the man without a care versus the man without a country. Both birdied the 17th and parred the 18th, although Watts hit the shot we'll remember, a long greenside bunker blast from an awkward lie that came out low and rolled to tap-in range. The two men then were taken to the 15th tee to start the four-hole, stroke-play playoff unique to the Open. Watts blinked first, missing a short birdie putt on 15. He squandered another stroke when he drove into a wall of grass on 17. In the 18th fairway, with sunlight squeezing through a crack in the clouds, O'Meara turned to Higginbotham and said, "I have never been this calm. I can't believe how calm I am." He then smacked a four-iron to the back edge of the green. Two putts later, he was the oldest player in modern times to win two majors in the same year.

Local favorite Rose, 17, celebrated holing out from 45 yards on the 72nd hole, a shot that helped him tie for fourth.    (Bob Martin)

Later in the hospitality tent, Watts dealt with his defeat calmly, comforted by the news that his $329,000 second-place check guaranteed him a place on the PGA Tour through 1999. But he wouldn't actually say that he was coming home. Not yet. "I've got obligations in Japan," he said, mindful of the sponsors who have treated him well there. "It's not a decision to make 15 minutes after I've lost in a playoff."

Outside, a throng of well-wishers surrounded O'Meara in the driveway next to the clubhouse while his wife, Alicia, watched happily and sipped champagne. "Mark didn't have anything to prove," she said. "This is just something nice that happened to us." Higginbotham, enjoying the moment—and his lager—said, "He's got to get his due now. If he never makes another penny in golf, Mark O'Meara is in the history books."

The funny thing was, the one guy without a glass in his hand was the winner. He just stood there with a contented smile on his face, clutching an old claret jug.

Issue date: July 27, 1998  

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