Survival Test
Jay Haas copes with brutal Oak Hill better than anyone to exorcise some demons and win his second Senior PGA Championship
Thirteen years after an unhappy ending at Oak Hill, Haas handled the layout's stiff challenge.
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It was less a golf tournament than a horror show (Oak Hell), one in desperate need of a happy ending to rescue it from the abyss. The wreckage was scattered across hallowed grounds steeped in history, some of it lamentably authored by the man to whom the beleaguered Senior PGA Championship eventually turned for salvation last week.
Jay Haas' reverence for Oak Hill CC, outside Rochester, N.Y., has never wavered, even in the long wake of his 18th-hole calamity in 1995 that allowed the Ryder Cup to return to Europe. Last Sunday he returned to the scene of his crimes, seeking reconciliation with the past. He again stood on the 18th tee, straddling victory and defeat, determined that history wouldn't deal him two of a kind.
"I kind of had a little chuckle to myself on the 18th tee," said Haas, who arrived there leading Bernhard Langer by a shot. "Well, you've been talking about this. It's time to put up or shut up. You talked a good game about getting up there and ripping it and all that stuff, and damn if I didn't do it."
It is the beauty of this beast, of course. Oak Hill gives as good as it takes. Gasoline is cheaper than the cost of a miscreant shot, but precision is rewarded. Haas produced what he called two of the best shots he has ever hit under pressure, made a routine par that gave him a one-stroke victory over Langer, and breathed a prodigious sigh of relief that "exorcised some demons," he said.
At that, victory was but a consolation prize on a course that got the better of everyone, even the winner. Haas' winning score of seven-over 287, including a four-over 74 Sunday, was by five strokes the highest to par in the history of senior golf's oldest major. Only 11 sub-par scores were recorded all week.
"I give. It wins. End of statement," said one deflated club pro, Jim Woodward, who might have been speaking on behalf of the field.
Host pro Craig Harmon said that on Thursday, at least, the course played as difficult as it had for the 2003 PGA Championship. "The weather was so cold for these gentlemen early in the week," he said. "Prior to cutting the rough I thought the rough was just as hard as the 2003 PGA. The course is shorter [7,001 yards for the Senior PGA], but the weather offset that and made it play longer."
The rough was deep, 3½ inches, according to tournament officials ("Maybe in March," Haas said), and the fairways were narrow. "You miss the fairways by one foot all the way around and you can bogey every hole," Ian Woosnam said.
Harmon conceded the rough was too deep Thursday and said the PGA of America cut it substantially before Friday's round. "I watched the practice round, and I watched the first round, and I [didn't see anyone] hit a ball out of the rough onto the green," he said. "Not one human being. I think that's too tough. I think you should have at least thought you might be able to hit the green. But everybody will complain about the rough. Look it up in the dictionary, the definition of rough. It doesn't say easy."
Or as Haas said so eloquently, "It ain't easy when it's hard."
It was easy enough at the 17th hole Saturday, at least. From the left rough, 162 yards from the pin, Haas slashed an 8-iron, the ball running up the right side, onto the green and into the hole for an eagle 2 to give him a share of the lead. "A pretty amazing turn of events," he said.
The rough was not so accommodating for Dave Eichelberger. Earlier that day, he took a slash at a ball in the rough and whiffed. "Let me ask you a question," he facetiously said to playing partner Lonnie Nielsen. "If you take a swing and the ball doesn't move, does it count as a stroke?"
