THE R&A’s OFFICIAL OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP MAGAZINE
Professional golf can be a cruel game. The ranks of the game’s nearly-men who have laboured manfully in the shadows without ever ascending the sunlit uplands of a Major victory, the ultimate yardstick by which history judges success and failure, is peopled by hard-working, honourable players. Until the summer of 1996, it seemed that Tom Lehman was destined to be amongst their number.
Having turned professional in 1982, the first decade of the Minnesotan’s career was short on achievement. Accompanied by his wife, Melissa, he ground it out first on the PGA Tour, then in Asia, South Africa and eventually back on the second tier Ben Hogan Tour in the US. In an era of superstars like Watson and Nicklaus, then Ballesteros and Faldo, the odds on the balding blue-collar Lehman achieving greatness appeared long.
By the mid 1990s, however, his name had begun to appear on the leader boards of significant events. Lehman held the 54-hole leadin the 1994 Masters, as well at the 1995 and 1996 U.S. Opens, before succumbing respectively to Jose Maria Olazabal, Corey Pavin and Steve Jones.
So when the 37-year-old Tom Lehman stepped on to the first tee at Lytham in 1996, he did so with a degree of confidence, despite no American having won there since Bobby Jones back in 1926. In only his third Open, he was rewarded with consecutive 67s and a share of the half-time lead with Ireland’s Paul McGinley.
So far so good, but the real fireworks started on the third round, when Lehman shot a stunning 64, the highlights of which were an 8-iron to eighteen inches on the fourth hole, and a snaking 35-foot birdie putt on the 16th. Lehman’s putting was never regarded as one his strengths but on this particular Saturday, his putter was on fire. The only blemish on his card was a bogey at the last caused by a 3-wood finding a fairway bunker, but his fifteen under par score of 198 was, and still is, a 54-hole record in the Open.
His nearest challengers, Ernie Els and Mark McCumber both faded with 71s putting them 8 and 9 shots back respectively. But the player Lehman most feared, Nick Faldo, shot a 68, good enough to make the final pairing for the fourth round, albeit still six shots back.
Just three months earlier, Faldo had been in exactly the same position after 54 holes at Augusta. In one of the most stunning turnarounds in Masters history, the Englishman had turned a six shot deficit into a five-shot victory over Greg Norman. So Faldo’s intimidating presence in the final pairing at the venerable Lancashire links gave the home crowd cause to rejoice.
“It was important to get into the last group,” said a smiling Faldo. “If you’re going to make anything happen, that’s where it has to be from.”
By now, the unfortunate epithet ‘doing a Norman’ had entered the lexicon, so in answer to the obvious press probing, Lehman replied laughingly, “You mean could lightning strike twice?” The man from Alexandria brushed the notion away. “It’s a different place and a different time. I feel like I’m playing very well. I like my situation. I’d certainly rather be six strokes ahead than six strokes behind.”
Other legends of the past, and future, were off the pace. Jack Nicklaus, up with the leaders after 36 holes, shot a Saturday 77 to fall back to 212; Greg Norman, not much better, languished on 210. The winner of the two previous Opens at Lytham in 1979 and 1988, Seve Ballesteros, missed the cut.
Despite shooting a ‘sign-of-things-to-come’ 66 on the Friday, a young amateur called Tiger Woods, not yet known to British crowds, found himself back in the pack on 2011. He would go on to win the Silver Medal and turn pro the following month.
But the predatory face in Lehman’s rearview mirror was Nick Faldo’s. “The ball is in my court,” Lehman said. “It’s my tournament to win, it’s my tournament to lose. I don’t feel like I’m going to be intimidated by Nick. I’ve seen his body language. He’s always got his head up, like he’s the only person on the golf course and he’s just going to kick your butt.”
In fact as the sun broke through the clouds on that historic Sunday, the first threat to the tournament leader came not from his playing partner but from his fellow countryman Freddie Couples who stormed out with a front nine 30, taking him to 12 under, just two shots back. But his scoring, rather like the Blackpool big dipper up the road, then swung violently back up again. A homecoming 41 took him well out of contention.
The next threat came from another big cat, the 1994 US Open Champion, Ernie Els, who reached 13 under par after a front-nine 33. Birdies at 10, 12 and 15 advanced his cause even further, but a pulled 2-iron into a bunker on 16 and the sandy graveyard his 3-wood found at the 18th seemed to have finished his challenge.
Meanwhile, Mark McCumber went steadily about his business, avoiding the course’s 200 bunkers, compiling a fourth round 66 that left himself and Els as clubhouse leaders on 273.
The expected duel between Faldo and Lehman never quite materialised. The Englishman’s putter was cold, while the American found the rough more often than he had on the three previous days put together. Saving pars, as he did on the long sixth after two shots played from the long grass, was about the limit of ambition.
Instead of maintaining Saturday’s aggressive form, Lehman played safe – except it wasn’t really working, and the partisan crowd was getting to him. A shouted reference likening his play to Norman’s at Augusta riled him. “It made me mad,” he said later. “No one wants to be called a choker or to be ridiculed. The implication was, ‘You’re going down.’ I don’t say this as anything derogatory to Greg, but history is history and I didn’t want the same thing to happen to me.”
Lehman steadied the ship at the 198-yard par-3 12th. The green is surrounded by six bunkers, with out-of-bounds on the right, but a beautifully struck four-iron came to rest just eight feet from the pin. The birdie putt both settled his nerves and unsettled his partner’s self-belief.
“I never made anything happen,” Faldo said. “I had a bad run with the putter there at five, six and seven, and then when he made that putt at the 12th I wasn’t able to do anything.”
Lehman went on to drop shots at 14 and 17but by the time he walked up the 18th, he still had a two shot cushion and, by now, the crowd were behind him. His round of 73 for a winning total of 271 put him two ahead of McCumber and Els, with Faldo a further shot adrift.
Post-match, the genial mid-Westerner confessed, “My great fear was to have on my gravestone: ‘Tom Lehman. He couldn’t win the big one.’” His name etched on the Claret Jug conclusively demonstrates otherwise. Never prone to hyperbole, he went on modestly to describe his victory as, “not pretty, but gritty.”