Andrew Spencer : Golf
So, Nick Price has another million dollars. He earned it, as he said after his one-shot win at Sun City last weekend, “the hard way”.
Price may not have the fanatical support Ernie Els enjoys among the South African public but, despite the Zimbabwean colours he flies, his roots are sunk just as deep here as our Ernie’s.
It was perhaps fitting then that with USPGA champion Davis Love III, already back in the clubhouse at 12-under on the final day of the tournament, and Phil Mickelson, the elegant American wrong-way-round player a hole behind and still not out of things despite a bogey on 17, that it would be the final hole which gave Els a sniff of making a looming four-way play-off and deciding the winner.
Funny then that a tournament which had been fiercely contested at front as Mickelson led, the first day, shared that lead with Love at halfway and then brought first Berhard Langer and then Price to the fore in the last round, finally hinged on two putts … first Els’s and then Price’s.
Els, who had had an indifferent week with the putter when everything looked like going down and then inexplicably leaked left of the hole, nailed a monster to match Price at 12-under with a beauty from around 12m.
His caddy, Ricky Roberts, was still breathless long after the prize-giving had ended. “I thought that all my man could do was roll it up there,” he said. “But I watched it come … and come .. and come. I just jerked the flag out and got out of the way. I knew it was in. I must have jumped as high as the 10th row of the stands.”
That touch of the Els genius left Price staring as a 3m pressure putt that either put him back into the lead or left him with the prospect of going back out for the cut- and-thrust of sudden death. “I knew I had to hold the club lightly,” said Price. “When the pressure is on the last thing you want is the death grip on the club.
“It felt like a feather in my hand and when I made contact I knew it was never going to miss.”
It didn’t. Price may not have done it wire- to-wire as he did in his 1993 win when the course buckled under an onslaught that saw Price shoot a worst round of 67 and come racing home with a 24-under 264, but there is no doubt that he was a happy man on the 18th green.
“Yes,” he said,”I suppose you could say that. I just feel great and it’s been the best ending to what has been a good year for me. A great way to get tuned up for January.” If that is how Price views it, the USTour better watch out for a certain player on the wrong side of 40 in 1998.