The only thing better than having Nick Price win your tournament once is having him win it twice. He goes for a three-peat in the Western Open next year.
If Motorola, the new sponsor, isn’t delighted, its phone is off the hook. Price represents all that’s good about golf, and more, though he’s taken enough cash out of Chicago lately to balance the city budget.
But Price is a credit to the game even when he debits your account by $216,000, as he proved late Sunday after encountering the man he beat by a stroke. Price put his arm around the shoulder of Greg Kraft and spoke from the heart.
“My future’s behind me, yours is ahead of you,” Price said. “You’ll be there someday soon.”
Price might be the best player on the planet, so understand that the heat of competition is still no match for his humility. What finer guy to carry the flag for Evans Scholars? But this world-class golfer by no means eased to victory at Cog Hill, and it was Kraft causing the anxiety. Of all people on that highfalutin’ leader board. The 169th name on the PGA Tour money list, a rabbit who’d missed 13 of 20 cuts this season, a mystery guest incapable of being noticed even in a bright red shirt and snow white pants.
“It was like I was by myself out there,” Kraft said. “I was playing with Jeff Sluman, who lives 10 minutes away. Nick Price, one of the most popular players anywhere, is in front. And in front of him, Mark Calcavecchia and Ryne Sandberg. I had a great time, a wonderful experience, but I was pretty much alone with my thoughts.”
Kraft also was alone in the sand below No. 12, that ferocious par 3. Sluman had gone from forest nearby to yonder fringe toward a double bogey that wiped him out when Kraft addressed his ball, sitting up rather nicely. So were guests at Motorola’s hospitality tent, not far away, their seats facing the action. Needless to say, finger sandwiches went flying when Kraft’s blast disappeared into the cup for birdie.
Good ol’ whatshisname had a three-shot lead with six holes to go. It was Kraft’s tournament to win or squander, and, alas, the latter occurred. His last 90 minutes or so were as cruel as they were confirmation of how difficult it is to win in this league. Before Price became the golfer of the ’90s, with 11 triumphs now in the decade, he endured eight winless seasons.
Kraft seemed composed as he walked to the No. 13 tee. Moments prior to his extraordinary bunker effort, he’d putted his ball on top of Sluman’s at No. 11 for a birdie of his own. But Kraft’s momentum ceased, and he began to leak oil spinning into Cog Hill’s grueling homestretch, a bier littered by skeletons from Greg Norman’s closet. The Shark performed a grotesque free-fall there in 1991.
Kraft bogeyed No. 13, then bogeyed No. 14, where he blocked a 5-iron. The ball found the green, but he was 85 feet from the cup and he three-putted. Kraft birdied No. 15, where Sluman’s previous putt provided local knowledge. At No. 16, Kraft made par despite his debatable use of a driver. He almost went splash. Then he blocked his tee shot at No. 17 and three-putted from 105 feet and joined the crowd with a bogey at No. 18. Everybody stumbled there, including Price, who observed from nearby.
It would be either playoff or payoff, and soon Price was hugging sidekick Jeff “Squeeky” Medlen, who deferred to Sandberg as most famous caddie this week, but still might have to become incorporated any day now. Price has earned about $4 million since 1990. Ten per cent of that will buy a lot of rakes.
Kraft, meanwhile, thinks deep.
“Paul Azinger is my friend,” he said. “He’s fighting cancer and has never once asked, `Why me?’ He’s unbelievable. I made a few bad swings today and didn’t win. So what? I’m going home to Florida tonight, go fishing tomorrow, and I hope Paul will go with me. He doesn’t have to hit a golf ball to be a champion to me.”