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Posted on: Thursday, June 21, 2001 Around the Greens By Bill Kwon
How do you spell Retief? For Goosen, it was winning the 18-hole playoff the day after three-putting from 12 feet at the 72nd hole that nearly blew the coveted championship worth $900,000 and a 10-year exemption to both the U.S. and British Open; and free passes to the Masters and PGA Championship for the next five years. The victory also enabled Goosen — whose name will now be linked to three-putting in the clutch — to join Masters champion Tiger Woods in the PGA Grand Slam of Golf on Nov. 20-21 at the Po'ipu Bay Resort on Kaua'i. They will be joined by the winners of golf's two remaining 2001 majors, the British Open next month and the PGA Championship. If it is anything like last year, figure on Woods winning both so that two alternates will join him and Goosen on the Garden Island. Anyway, here's hoping that Tiger will win the next two majors and spare all of us the agony of seeing a gaggle of "Goosens" as we had witnessed at the 18th green of the Southern Hills Country Club. The futile finish to a Tigerless major wasn't ugly — it was unbelievably ugly. Nothing against Mark Brooks, who lost to Goosen in the playoff after both finished at 4-under-par 276. But I was pulling for the laidback South African, called the "New Big Easy" because of a similar demeanor to his fellow countryman, Ernie Els. I still remember the time Brooks, who had won the PGA Championship, stiffed the media by not showing up for a press conference after the 1996 PGA Grand Slam. Sure, he finished last. But there are four guys in the event sponsored by the PGA of America, and its own champion didn't show up. Call it what you will, but Brooks never won again and never had to worry about having to talk to the media until last week. Still, to Brooks' credit, he gave the U.S. Open more of a run than Phil Mickelson and David Duval, both still in search of their first victory in a major. Hawai'i ties to the U.S. Open The $30,055 that Kane'ohe native Dean Wilson earned for finishing in a tie for 31st place with a 288 in Tulsa, Okla., on Sunday is the most money ever won by a local-born golfer in the U.S. Open. It's also the lowest 72-hole score by a golfer from Hawai'i, beating the 289 shot by David Ishii when he finished tied for 36th in the 1988 U.S. Open at Brookline (Mass.) Country Club. However, the highest finish in the national golf championship came in the 1964 U.S. Open when the late Ted Makalena tied for 23rd at the Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md. Makalena shot a 295. However, he earned only $475 as the golfers played more for pride than money in those days. Makalena tied for 27th the previous year at Brookline. To my knowledge, only 11 golfers from here (see accompanying chart) ever played in the U.S. Open, with Makalena making six appearances — the first at Inverness in 1957 and the next year at Southern Hills, the site of this year's championship. The list doesn't include three-time U.S. Open champion Hale Irwin, who represents Kapalua, and former residents Scott Simpson, the 1987 winner, and Anthony Kang, a South Korean native and Roosevelt High School graduate, who made the cut this year. Besides Makalena, Wilson and Ishii, only the late Jimmy Ukauka made the 36-hole cut, surviving to play 72 holes at the Olympic Club in San Francisco in 1955. It was the second of his two U.S. Open appearances, the first being at Oakland Hills in 1951. For the others, just qualifying and playing in the U.S. Open proved a thrill in itself, and a memorable experience. Just ask Keith Kollmeyer, who played in the 1982 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. He missed the cut, but startled the gallery by making birdies on three of the first four holes to be atop the leaderboard. Even the scoreboard keeper was taken aback. He put up Tom Weiskopf's name instead, until corrected by Kollmeyer's father, Hap. "I ought to know. He's my son," the elder Kollmeyer told the person manning the leaderboard. Kollmeyer's greatest thrill was playing a practice round with Arnold Palmer, whose gallery numbered around 5,000, even on a Wednesday. They threw balls for partners and Kollmeyer was teamed with Palmer against Bob E. Smith and Chris Perry, then an amateur. On Pebble's signature hole, the breathtaking par-5 18th, Kollmeyer sank a 70-foot birdie putt to clinch the match before Palmer could get a chance for his bird from six feet. "The crowd (which swelled to 10,000, counting the fans in the stands) went crazy," Kollmeyer recalled. "Arnie just looked at me. And when he missed his putt, he wasn't a happy camper." Bill Kwon can be reached at bkwon@aloha.net.
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