OUT OF A BUNKER INTO HISTORY BOB TWAY BIRDIED THE FINAL HOLE FROM A SAND TRAP TO OVERTAKE A FALTERING GREG NORMAN AND WIN THE PGA CHAMPIONSHIP
It was one of the most remarkable shots in golfing history, and
with it on Monday the young Oklahoman Bob Tway wrested the PGA
Championship from the year's most remarkable golfer, Greg Norman.
They had come to the 72nd and last tee on Toledo's Inverness Club
course dead even at seven under par, Tway having stripped a
four-stroke lead from the Australian in the previous eight holes.
Norman, who had won his first major, the British Open, three weeks
earlier, put his second shot on the 354-yard, par-4 hole in the
fringe, 25 feet from the pin. Tway's second nestled in a bunker just
short of the green. The green sloped away from him, and on this sunny
day Inverness's greens were rattlesnake fast.
Tway swung. The ball floated softly, landed about a foot onto the
putting surface and began rolling. When the ball -- shades of Tom
Watson at Pebble Beach in 1982 -- fell smack into the cup, Tway began
jumping excitedly up and down. Those who had thought of him as a
kind of golfing robot, wanting in emotional feeling, saw another Tway
now.
Norman, who on Saturday chipped in from 60 feet to save par at
the 13th, needed another miracle shot to force a playoff, but his
chip raced 10 feet past the cup. He had let the Masters slip from
his grasp, then the U.S. Open, and now, in a year in which, with
luck, he might have had a Grand Slam -- as it was, he led all four
majors after three rounds for a Saturday Slam -- the Great White
Shark was harpooned again.
Tway, in tears at that electric moment, could scarcely talk, but
his solid and improving game had spoken eloquently enough all year;
he had won three tournaments before Inverness and now stood second on
the money list with $600,005 to Norman's record $644,729.
Tway's wife, Tammie, was also emotional over the victory, as
well she ( might have been, since she had seen the downside of his
career from up close. At the 1983 Tour qualifying tournament on the
TPC course in Ponte Vedra, Fla., she watched as her husband collapsed
on the final day. He was 12th when the last of six rounds began. The
top 50 would get cards. Tway shot 41-40 for 81, finishing with a
double-bogey six at the 18th. He missed earning his card by one
stroke.
Of that day Tammie has said, ''There were tears, a lot of them.
We went to bed at 7:30 that night and couldn't sleep. We couldn't eat
the next day.
''For a while Bob was reliving that 81 every day. He went to Asia
and was shooting in the 80's all the time. We had to borrow $3,000
from the bank. But he bought a video machine and every night he'd
study his swing. He worked his little buns off.'' Tway qualified
for the Tour the following year.
Until Monday, Norman had been just about the whole show at
Inverness, taking command of the tournament with rounds on the par-71
course of 65, 68 and 69 before rain Sunday forced postponement of the
final round until the next day. He had also taken command of the
media -- or they of him -- giving so many interviews and posing for
so many pictures that he said, ''Is this a soap opera, or what?''
But Tway hadn't exactly been invisible. On Saturday he shot a
course- record 64, following rounds of 72 and 70 -- this on a layout
that had never yielded a subpar score for 72 holes in four U.S.
Opens. It's a course with small, hard, bottle-cap greens and a
forest of trees lurking off the fairways. ''In this game you either
get better or worse,'' Tway would say. ''I learned down the road
that you have to work hard.'' It paid off on the last nine Monday,
for though Norman was opening the door with errant tee shots, Tway
got into enough trouble himself to bring down a less determined or
less skillful man. He saved par on both 15 and 17 with wedge shots of
surgical accuracy, the latter from a lie so deep in the rough that TV
cameras could hardly pick out the ball. ''Talk about destiny,'' said
Peter Jacobsen, a playing partner Monday. ''Tway was dead on 15 and
17 and he didn't have much chance on 18. It was fantastic.
''The thing that stands out in my mind about Bob is his relaxed
attitude around the course,'' Jacobsen went on. ''I played with him
at Westchester last year and he shot a 74 or 75, but he didn't get
mad. I told him afterward, 'You're going to be a great player.' He
just said, 'Thanks.' But I had the feeling he knew and didn't need
me to tell him.''
Norman's seemingly solid lead dissipated after he wound up in a
fairway divot on the 13th and double-bogeyed, then bogeyed 14 after
he looped a drive under a tree. Tway, meanwhile, made birdie on the
par-5 13th.
The word ''choke'' had been uttered, to Norman's deep displeasure,
after his near-misses in earlier majors, and now the same subject was
being raised. He was asked, ''Is the monkey on your back again?''
''Why say something like that?'' Norman sputtered. ''I'll
probably go out and win the next two weeks.''
Then Norman strode from the press tent, his jaw set. Tway was off
to the side, going over that shot yet again. ''I was just trying to
get it close,'' he said.
Close to immortality, it seems. END
Photo(s):
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHN IACONO
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHN IACONO
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHN IACONO His winning shot (far left) brought a whoop from Tway, but it meant that once again the Shark (right) had leta big one get away.