Old Course,
New Face
Louis Oosthuizen
Callaway Works To
Keep Players ‘Fit’ ( 4)
Tom Watson’s Old Course
Farewell ( 10)
Bettencourt Breaks Through
At Reno-Tahoe Open ( 17)
ST. ANDREWS, SCOTLAND | Louis Oost-
huizen, the pronounced Open Champi-
onship winner with the mispronounced
last name, showed up at St. Andrews
last week fresh off a missed cut at the
Scottish Open. Unfazed, he responded
by horsewhipping the best players in the
world. His margin of victory over runner-
up Lee Westwood was seven shots.
Whoo Knoo?
So dominant was the gap-toothed,
27-year-old South African in the final
round, there wasn’t a drop of drama all day.
Yes, this one will be remembered,
in part, as the major that belonged to
the corporals and the privates. Not one
player on the first page of the leader-
board at the Old Course had affixed a
victory at any of golf’s four most coveted
compeititions to his résumé by the time
the tumult and the shouting (and the
wind) had died down Saturday night.
To be sure, there had been cameos
from three of golf’s highest-ranking pro-
files. But the multi-chromatic John Daly,
who opened with a smooth 66, eventu-
ally got “pantsed” by the elements. Tiger
Woods was undone by an ill-advised
decision to switch putters. And Phil
Mickelson, once again, showed that
his estimable skill set is just, well, too
“American” for the demands of links golf.
Golf has been a little off balance ever
since Woods plowed into that hydrant late
last year. So perhaps we should not have
been surprised when Oosthuizen’s lead
kept growing all week despite the fact that
his scores (65-67-69-71) kept climbing.
