Leonard and Woods positioned for rivalry
By Frank Luksa
The Dallas Morning News
(KRT)
MAMARONECK, N.Y. - As a sign of heavenly approval, a double
rainbow appeared Sunday at Winged Foot Golf Club as Davis Love
III putted out to win the 79th PGA Championship. As a co-sign
that he belongs with the upper echelon of major tournament contenders,
Justin Leonard finished second.
Details are fairly dry. Love's five-shot victory, neither close
nor thrilling, occurred in the equivalent of a match-play format.
What his first win in a Grand Slam event lacked in drama, Love
recovered in brilliant efficiency.
Final-round partners Love and Leonard were tied at 7-under
par when they teed off knowing their closest pursuer lay a distant
seven shots back. From an original field of 150 golfers, the PGA
had shrunk to a two-man tournament. It shrank further after only
four holes.
Love took a three-shot lead with par-par-birdie-par. Leonard
went par-bogey-par-bogey and never came closer than three thereafter.
He faced a five-shot deficit making the turn and finished a 1-over
71 in the same shape. Love's near-flawless 66 - his third 4-under
round of the PGA - made him an 11-under-par champion with a 269
total.
There was no disgrace in losing to Love, although Leonard surely
felt a twinge for failure to offer sustained challenge. Love simply
applied maximum early pressure and refused Leonard a comeback,
opening with a five-birdie, one-bogey performance. To beat him,
Leonard would've had to repeat the course-record 65 he shot on
Saturday.
Winged Foot was designed to prevent such gouging. Its reluctance
to suffer abuse was underlined by a yield of sub-par finishes
to only two others - Jeff Maggert and Lee Janzen - and one even-par
280 to 47-year-old Tom Kite.
A nice scene unfolded between Love and Leonard as they walked
toward the 18th green. Leonard admitted conflicting emotions to
Love. Personal disappointment mingled with happiness for good-pal
Love and his family. Love mentioned the Ryder Cup to remind Leonard
of their joint effort ahead against a European team.
"When we got towards the front of the green, he said,
'You go (first)," Leonard recalled. "And I said, 'No,
you go. You deserve it.' "
Leonard already had gone first last month in terms of winning
his first major, the British Open, at age 25. Love waited until
he was 33 for a Grand Slam breakthrough. Tiger Woods dominated
the Masters at 21. Ernie Els won his second U.S. Open at 27.
Who among them has the brightest future in majors?
The choice is Leonard, and not because he's hometown born with
ties to Lake Highlands High School, the University of Texas and
Royal Oaks Country Club. Rather, because of his expanding dossier
of command on a variety of tough tracks.
Leonard has consecutive finishes of fifth, eighth and second
in PGAs contested at Riviera CC, Valhalla Golf Club and Winged
Foot. He won the British Open from five shots behind on the final
18 over a links layout at Royal Troon in Scotland. A quiet tie
for 7th at the Masters and tie for 36th in the U.S. Open completed
his Big Four calendar.
This indicates Leonard has an adaptable game he can shape to
prevailing circumstance. He thinks well on the course. His tools
are solid. His mind is strong.
Better, Leonard is the most likely of same-generation challengers
to Woods. That is, if Tiger can hold up his end by configuring
a game to tight courses with high rough. His advantage at Augusta
is pronounced through extraordinary length on wide fairways that
lack briar-patch borders.
At other major tournament sites with narrow driving lanes guarded
by gorse and grass, he didn't fare well the first time around.
He finished tied for 19th (U.S. Open), 24th (British Open) and
29th (PGA). Wisdom and more patience will benefit Woods in coming
years.
So might a Leonard-Woods rivalry be the coming thing. No other
within four years of Tiger's age looms with credits to go head-to-head
with Woods and argue his predicted supremacy. It's time for a
match-up where careers peak simultaneously.
Golf has been absent classic man-to-man duels since Jack Nicklaus
went at it against Arnold Palmer, then Lee Trevino and finally,
Tom Watson. Before them, there was Hogan-Snead-Nelson. And earlier
still, Walter Hagen versus Bob Jones.
The beauty of conjuring Leonard-Woods as the next rivalry to
ripen is that it has 10-15 years to evolve. Woods started the
season fast. Leonard hit his stride later. Both look competent
enough to go the distance in neck-to-neck fashion, their finish
line somewhere over another rainbow well into the next century.
(Frank Luksa is a sports columnist for the Dallas Morning News.
Write to him at: Dallas Morning News, Communications Center, Dallas,
Texas 75265.)
(c) 1997, The Dallas Morning News.
Visit The Dallas Morning News on the World Wide Web at http://www.dallasnews.com/
Distributed by Knight-Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
Start or Join A Discussion about This Item
Send the URL (Address) of This Item
to A Friend:
|
