Sportsmanship by Eight Strokes

By T.C.

Grace and Zoeller win the towel wavers' U.S. Open

The shot making at Winged Foot last week was only remarkable, the towel waving memorable. Fuzzy Zoeller signaled mock surrender to Greg Norman at the fieriest moment of a U.S. Open Sunday, and when the heat was off in their 18-hole playoff the following day, Norman waved back. Golf may be "a rude game," as Zoeller says, but golfers almost unfailingly display a grace under pressure that used to be the definition of heroism. From Yankee Stadium to Wimbledon, the phrase has pretty much abandoned sport.

This is not to say that very many have the temperament of Frank Urban Zoeller, 32, who whistles while he plays. Or that an eight-stroke drubbing was casually accepted by Norman, 29, a hatchet-faced Australian able to hit the ball prodigious distances in unpredictable directions. "I needed something special. It never happened," he said after the playoff. "I feel disappointed and hollow." While it is the nature of contests that today's defeat can make yesterday's victory seem meaningless, neither a 160-yd., 6-iron shot into the 18th grandstand nor a 40-ft. putt into the 72nd hole will ever leave Norman completely.

Zoeller is right about the game's impolite tendencies. Ten years ago, venerable Winged Foot in Mamaroneck, N.Y., was outfitted by the United States Golf Association as retaliation for Johnny Miller's final 63 in the previous Open. To charges that at times they have attempted to mortify the world's greatest golfer, U.S.G.A. officials always answer no, they were only trying to identify him, never explaining how they might happen to identify him as Orville Moody or Andy North.

In 1974 Hale Irwin neglected to break par 70 on any of the four days, but his seven-over-par score won the tournament by two shots. This year, when agronomists left the course relatively alone, Irwin led with three sub-par rounds before collapsing spectacularly under the combined weight of Winged Foot's patient vengeance and a second straight day of Zoeller's rollicking gallery. These days a golfer unafraid to smile is likely to be followed anywhere. Before the playoff, Zoeller said, "I kept hearing people say, 'Don't let the money out of the country.' Hell, it's only going to Orlando." Norman recently moved there.

Making a 68-ft. putt without trying to, Zoeller took a three-stroke lead on the second hole. Norman three-putted three of the first five, and the most meaningful championship in golf turned into a brisk 3-hr. 15-min. walk. When Zoeller missed a birdie putt near the close of his handsome 67, Norman in jest made the sort of choking sign that professional basketball players flash to each other in earnest. Then he went to his own ball. "Knock it in," Fuzzy said softly.

His aching back is bad enough for Zoeller alternately to contemplate quitting or having surgery. "A few minor pains," he acknowledged after each round, though none ever showed. "Walking the final hole gave me the warmest feeling up the coldest streak of my back. Like the Masters [which he won in 1979, also in a playoff] I think I'll realize what I've done over a period of years." Someone wondered how soon Norman is apt to win a major championship, and the straw-haired man known as the Great White Shark replied, "The next one." Who will root against him? --T.C.