The Aussie Menace

U.S. golf fans may never even have heard of him--but that's fine as far as Peter Thomson is concerned. A stocky (5 ft. 9 in., 170 lb.), stolid Aussie who 16 years ago gave up a promising career as a chemist to play pro golf, Thomson is frankly anti-American. "I've always been one to keep the Yanks at their distance," he says, and he diligently keeps his own--by refusing to compete on the big-money U.S. tour. But by one standard, at least, Thomson at 35 ranks as one of the game's top stars: he has probably won more national championships than any other golfer in the world. Last week, to a collection that already includes seven New Zealand Opens, two Hong Kong Opens, the Philippines Open, the Australian Open and the Spanish Open, he added the British Open--for the fifth time.

Thomson did it on familiar ground: England's Royal Birkdale golf course, 7,037 yds. of sand, gorse, bracken and narrow fairways that twist like green ribbons around the bleak coast of Liverpool Bay. It was at Royal Birkdale that Thomson won his first British Open in 1954--when Arnold Palmer was still an amateur and Jack Nicklaus was in junior high school. Palmer was there last week, gunning for his third British Open with a brand-new putter and the happy air of a man who has given up trying to give up smoking. So was Nicklaus, grimly "desperate" he said, to win the only one of pro golf's four top titles (others: the U.S. Open, the Masters, the P.G.A.) that had eluded him so far. Also on hand was Gary Player, who completed a sweep of his own by winning last month's U.S. Open. In practice, Nicklaus shot a 65, wowed spectators by reaching Royal Birkdale's par-five, 510-yd. 17th hole with a drive and a sand wedge. Tony Lema, the 1964 winner, went Nicklaus one better; he turned his silver trophy over to officials and said cockily: "Put this in safekeeping for me for four days."

Lema wasn't kidding. As the match got under way, he shot a first-round 68, five-under-par--one-putting seven greens, coolly curling in twisting putts of 20 ft. and 30 ft. for birdies. But by the end of the second day, the field was still so tightly bunched that only six strokes separated the top 22 golfers.

Slip in the Tub. Nerves began to show. Lema moaned about his driving ("I know where to hit the ball, but I can't hit it there") and Nicklaus griped about the greens: "Bumpy, too slow, the worst I've ever seen for a British Open." Player's complaint was a stiff neck, the consequence of trying to do calisthenics in his bathtub. "I can only manage half a backswing," he groaned. Peter Thomson kept quiet--mostly because he had never felt better in his life. For four years, he had been plagued by chronic hay fever, but Royal Birkdale's sea breeze was just the thing for his sniffles.

And, as it turned out, for his game. At the halfway point, Thomson was only two strokes off Lema's pace. Then, as the golfers teed off for the 36-hole final round, the gentle breeze turned to blustery gusts; pelting rain lashed the fairways and collected in puddles on the saucer-shaped greens. One by one, Thomson's competitors faltered. Player staggered through a morning-round 79, picked up his ball and quit without bothering to play out the last 18. Losing his touch altogether, Palmer missed twelve short putts (10 ft. and under) in the morning. In the afternoon he blew sky-high with a 79 that dropped him all the way to 16th place. Nicklaus' problem was that he didn't know his own strength. On the first hole, he overshot the green, found his ball resting on top of a well cover. He asked for a free drop, got it--and dropped the ball smack into a clump of wild raspberries. His morning-round score: a four-over-par 77.

Cutting the Dogleg. That left only Tony Lema. All through the long afternoon, Lema and Thomson fought it out, the Aussie relaxed and smiling, clicking off his shots with monotonous accuracy, the American tense and grim, spraying drives, recovering with remarkable chips and putts. After 16 holes, Thomson was ahead by a stroke. Then he bore down. His drive cut the dogleg of the 17th hole. A perfect No. 3 iron put him on the green, and two putts gave him a birdie four. Lema's drive sliced into the rough, and his second shot soared over a fence into the crowd. He was lucky to escape with a five.

It was over. Another birdie on the 18th gave Peter Thomson a 72-hole total of 285, seven under par. It also gave the new British Open champion a free trip to the U.S., to compete in next month's World Series of Golf for the game's richest prize: $50,000. That is, if Yankophobe Thomson wanted to go. Harrumph, harrumph. Of course he did. "There's no reason," he said crisply, "why I shouldn't do well over there."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.