Course Has These Guys Under Its Winged Feet

MAMARONECK, N.Y. —  And the leader in the clubhouse is . . . Winged Foot! (Never mind Love and Leonard, they didn’t beat it, they survived it).

They like to think this is a par-70 around here.

Hah!

And Custer thought those Indians were friendly. And the Titanic thought those were ice cubes floating by. And Little Red Riding Hood thought the wolf was Grandma.

Let me tell you one thing: Winged Foot is an 18-hole sociopath. It hates golfers.

Not that that makes it all bad. But it has it in for all these cocky young types who come here able to hit nine-irons 185 yards and drives that go through two counties.

Winged Foot boxes their ears. There are subtleties here. This is no pitch-and-putt in South Florida, no rubber-mat muni in Ojai. This is the big time, baby. Broadway. New York, New York. It’ll teach these hicks a thing or two.

It’s not so nice on the legends, either. Tom Watson almost won here in 1974. But he threw a little 79 at the course Friday. Winged Foot doesn’t forget. Or forgive. Tom missed the cut. Welcome back, Tom.

At that, he did better than many. Ben Crenshaw shot an 80. Nick Faldo? Three-time winner of the Masters and British Open? Winged Foot sent him packing. Shot 75-78. Curtis Strange? Won two U.S. Opens? Well, not this week, Curtis. Shot 76-77. Fuzzy Zoeller won here in 1984. Beat Greg Norman in an Open. He didn’t make the weekend either. Turned in 73-75. Mark Brooks won this championship last year. Well, this ain’t Louisville, Brooksie. He shot a 79 here Friday.

Say good night, Mark.

How tough was it? Well, Tiger Woods--yes, that Tiger Woods--hit a shot on 17 Saturday that went exactly two feet. We know that shot, right?

My kind of course, sports fans. Let’s see these la-dee-dah guys with their one-irons find out the kind of game we play all the time. Aggravating, ain’t it, when that ball hits a tree, that 20-foot putt slides 23 feet past? Eat your heart out. That happens to us on a 5,000-yard Sun City track.

Even the big hitters get their comeuppance here. About time. Put that lumber away and play the game the way the Scots intended it. Hit it 320 off the tee here and not only is the ball lost, so are you. Titanium doesn’t help you here.

Can I tell you something about Winged Foot? At the opening of business Saturday, there had been 445 birdies shot on the opening nine. There had been 697 bogeys. There had been 111 double bogeys.

On the back nine, there had been 363 birdies. And 749 bogeys. And 104 double bogeys! (On the tour, you won’t get that many double bogeys in a month. Two months.)

There were 808 birdies altogether. And 1,446 bogeys.

If this course were human, it would sleep in a coffin. Have a taste for blood. Turn into a wolf at night.

It looks like such a nice place to hold a picnic or bird-watch. But then, I imagine Count Dracula looked like your Uncle Bill--until you noticed how red his teeth were. And you wouldn’t notice the eyes in the castle wall portraits moved.

As if the course weren’t antisocial enough on its own, a venomous electrical storm moved in Saturday afternoon, scouring the premises with thunder and lightning and sheets of water, weather that would be threatening to ships at sea, never mind golfers with bags of steel sticks.

So, Winged Foot is your winner and still champion. As to the survivors bobbing around in lifeboats on its greens and fairways . . .

By the time they resumed play at 7:15 p.m. Saturday, only four players were under par. By the time they finished play, only two were.

Those two were Justin Leonard and the third Davis Love. British Open winner Leonard shot the lowest round ever in a Winged Foot championship, 65.

As for Davis, it was a case of Love-Your-Magic-Spell-Is-Everywhere, in the words of the old song. This Love was in bloom, all right. He shot a gutsy 66. He fought the course all day out of a crouch. Winged Foot kept trying to bite him in the ear. He kept making par out of the trees and birdies from knee-high rough.

At minus seven, these two have pretty much reduced today’s finale in this 79th PGA Championship to match play, a format it used for the first 40 years of its existence until it became too unwieldy for the commissioner of golf, TV.

The likelihood of the field making up seven shots on both of the leaders is remote to impossible. Still, Winged Foot may have one more murder in mind. It may resent 65s and 66s being shot on it.

On the air, Bobby Clampett had a word for the field. “You can’t play Winged Foot from the rough.”

Hell, you can’t play it from the fairway.