14

GOLIATH BEATS DAVID… BARELY

IT HAS BEEN SAID of the PGA Tour that all the stops begin to look alike after a while. Some ranges have more room than others, and some golf courses are more scenic than others. The jackets of the local organizers change colors every week, and some places supply Buicks as their courtesy cars, others supply Chryslers or Hondas or Cadillacs.

The two times of year when everyone must dig in and grind are the nine weeks between the Masters and the U.S. Open and the eight weeks between the World Series of Golf and the Tour Championship. None of the tournaments during that fall stretch are glamour events, but a lot of players are fighting for their golfing lives.

The spring grind is different from the fall grind. After the Masters the newness of the year has worn off and, unlike the winter stretch, when everyone feels privileged to be in warm-weather places like Arizona, Hawaii, California, and Florida, heat starts to become part of the drudgery. The weather gets hotter, tempers get shorter, and players who started slowly and thought it was just a bad start now must face up to the fact that their problem may be far more serious than that.

One player who was wondering where his year might be going as April drew to a close was Brian Henninger. After flunking Q-School in December, Henninger had gone home to Oregon and, in spite of his uncertain status on tour for 1994, had gone ahead with the plans he and his wife Cathy had made to buy their first house.

Henninger had made $112,000 on the golf course and roughly another $50,000 off it in 1993, so he wasn’t in bad shape financially. Still, he wondered how many tournaments he would get into during the next year and how much time he should spend on the Nike Tour.

Henninger was in golf’s version of the twilight zone. Having finished 130th on the money list, he was still a PGA Tour member and would probably get into fifteen to seventeen tournaments on the big tour in ’94. Most golfers like to play between twenty-four and thirty-two weeks a year. Henninger had played thirty-one in 1993. That meant that if he wanted a full schedule he would have to play about a dozen Nike Tour events. That didn’t thrill him. Once you have tasted the world of big crowds and fancy clubhouse meals and courtesy cars on the big tour, it is very difficult to return to the minor leagues.

Beyond that, Henninger also had to decide what was the best route back to a full exemption for 1995. Did he play every week he could on the big tour and hope he could make enough money on a limited schedule to make the top 125? Or did he make the Nike Tour his priority, knowing that if he finished the year in the top ten on the Nike money list that would put him back on tour? The only year he had been on the big tour—1993—it had been a second-place finish on the 1992 Hogan money list that put him there.

Henninger didn’t have to make any decisions until March since there was only one Nike event during the first two months of the year. Until then he would play wherever his number came up on the big tour. That turned out to be Hawaii, Pebble Beach, and San Diego. He made the cut in the first two and earned a total of $6,883. Not exactly a flying start, especially since he knew he wouldn’t get into any of the four Florida tournaments.

While the big tour made its way through Florida, Henninger headed for the Nike Tour. The only consolation about being back in Triple-A was that he was reunited with his pal Jeff Cook, who, after flirting briefly with the idea of going to play in Asia, had decided to give the Nike Tour one more shot.

Henninger’s first venture back into Nike-land was a successful one. He finished second in the Monterey Open and made $22,700. Again, the question begged: grit your teeth and go the Nike route all year, turning down chances to play in big tour events, or keep going back and forth, hoping the half-baked approach would pan out somewhere. Skip Kendall, who had finished one place ahead of Henninger on the 1993 money list, decided early in the year to make Nike his focus. He won the first tournament of the year and was never out of the top ten on the list all season.

Henninger had trouble staying enthusiastic. His next three Nike events produced two missed cuts and a tie for twenty-seventh. He knew that there were going to be chances for him on the big tour in May, June, and July. After playing Nike-Shreveport the same week as the GGO, he was told he would get into Houston and Atlanta the next two weeks. That would mean skipping Nike events in Alabama and South Carolina.

“I don’t belong on the Nike Tour,” he said during the week in Shreveport. “I really believe that my best golf is good enough to compete with the big boys and that’s where I want to be. I may be wrong, but I’m going to play up there every chance I get.”

Houston produced another missed cut. But Henninger wasn’t discouraged. He was convinced that he was hitting the ball solidly enough to play well if—and this was always a big if—he could make some putts. Henninger is one of those players who changes putters the way most people change their shirts. He has a basement full of putters, and he is constantly down there pulling out old ones that have had success or looking at new ones that he is convinced will turn things around. After Houston, he decided to try a new putter—a Zebra—for the BellSouth Classic in Atlanta. “Maybe those stripes will straighten me out,” he said.

Maybe. Or maybe it was Paul Goydos who straightened him out. Late Tuesday afternoon, he ran into Henninger on the putting green and they began talking about Henninger’s frustration with the putter. Goydos suggested Henninger putt a few while he watched. What he thought he saw was Henninger moving the lower part of his body too soon—a common putting flaw. Goydos often practiced at home with his rear end up against the wall to force himself to get into the habit of not moving the lower part of his body. He told Henninger what he thought, and Henninger agreed to try to concentrate on keeping very still below the waist.

Whether it was the putting lesson or the stripes on the putter or biorhythms, Henninger came out putting like a demon on Thursday afternoon. Starting on the back nine, he birdied four of the first seven holes before missing the green at the tough 17th to fall back to three under. Undaunted, he birdied the par-five 18th to make the turn in 32.

His only scare came when he walked onto the 18th green and looked at the scoreboard on the far side of the lake that fronts the green. The board said he was seven over par, rather than three under. For a moment, Henninger’s heart stopped. Then he laughed. “I figured that no matter what I had done, I hadn’t picked up a ten-stroke penalty,” he said. He double-checked with the walking scorer after making his birdie just to be certain there was no confusion.

After he had hit his drive at number one, Henninger walked off the tee and saw a leader board. Hal Sutton and Tom Kite were leading at six under par. At that moment, no one was at five under, and Henninger was one of several players at four under. Since he had reached four under most recently, his name was at the top of the four unders, meaning his was the third name on the board.

A chill ran through Henninger. That’s where my name belongs, he thought. This is where I’m supposed to be and this is how I should play. He looked at Cathy, who had walked one hole with eleven-month-old Carlin, then taken her to the tournament day-care center so she could spend some time walking with her husband. Wearing sunglasses, Cathy betrayed no emotion. But Brian knew her well enough to know what she was thinking. He felt himself choking up. “I had to catch myself,” he said. “I mean, it’s only Thursday and I’ve played nine holes. But it had been so long since I’d put myself in position to be on a leader board that it really meant a lot just to be there.”

Henninger knew he had to refocus quickly. In 1993, during the third round at Doral, he had seen his name pop onto the leader board right below the name Nicklaus. He had gotten goose bumps just looking at the board and he didn’t get his concentration back until four holes and two bogeys later.

He was still fighting chills when he dumped his second shot into the right-hand bunker at number one. That turned out to be a blessing since it roused him from his reverie. He blasted to four feet and made the putt for par.

The rest of the day was all pars. Henninger made a couple of good saves and missed some decent birdie chances. His instinct about Cathy had been right. “When he plays this well, I get even more nervous,” she said. At the sixth hole, she decided to go get Carlin so they could meet Brian when he finished. She made sure to tell Chris Mazziotti, Brian’s caddy, that she was leaving so Brian wouldn’t notice her absence and think something was wrong.

It wasn’t as if she could blend in with the gallery. Henninger was in the second-to-last group of the day with Larry Silvera and Chris DiMarco and the course was virtually empty. When Henninger stepped up to hit his tee shot at the par-three sixth, he could clearly hear a woman holding a loud conversation about 50 yards away. He should have stepped back and asked for quiet, but opted not to. He ended up in the back bunker.

The emptiness of the golf course is just one of the things that makes playing in the late dog groups so difficult. The greens are spiky, the scoreboards seem frozen since so few players are on the course and the marshals are bored and tired. As Henninger found out, you can hear any conversation taking place in the same county.

It is a lot like being in a ghost town. That afternoon, when Tripp Isenhour, one of the players in the final group, had to return to the seventh tee after losing a ball, he found that the tee markers were gone.

Ghosts? No, the grounds crew, which follows close behind the last group, moving markers and pins and rolling and watering greens. Players in the last group learn that Satchel Paige was right. They don’t look behind them because something is very definitely gaining on them.

It was almost six o’clock and the Atlanta Country Club was almost empty by the time Henninger and his playing partners walked off the last green. Henninger didn’t care. He had shot 68, his best round of the year. “Three more like that and I’ll be very happy.” He looked at the scoreboard and pointed a finger at his name. “It looks good up there now,” he said. “But the key is to still be there at this time on Sunday.”

He was still there on Friday. In fact, he had moved up, into sole possession of second place after shooting a 67. He even made it into the interview room. “First time on the big boy tour,” he said. “It was fun. I hope I get to go back.”

If Henninger had walked off 18 that morning and announced that, yes, it was true, he really was Elvis and had started to sing “Hound Dog,” no one would have noticed.

The reason was John Daly.

After the debacle at the GGO, Daly had gone on to Houston and, with his new haircut getting a lot of attention, had played extremely well, finishing in a tie for seventh. He started in Atlanta with a 69 and then, playing early Friday morning, he went on a birdie binge. By the time he was finished, he had shot 64 and had a two-shot lead on Henninger and three on everyone else in the field.

Daly had missed the Pro-Am Wednesday, excused by the tour because he had to be in Memphis for a custody hearing. He and his wife, Bettye, were going through a messy divorce, and some of Daly’s friends believed that one of the reasons for his erratic behavior at the GGO was concern that he might not be granted visitation rights to his daughter, Shynah, who would be two in June. The judge had granted the visitation rights and Daly jumped into his van and drove straight through to Atlanta. Daly flies only when he has to, and the nine hours from Memphis to Atlanta was a piece of cake.

His Friday round electrified the tournament. When Daly is playing well, he is a joy to watch, not only because he hits the ball so far, but because he has a wonderful short game. He has soft hands and excellent feel around the green when he is working at his game. On a roll, he feeds off the gallery’s enthusiasm, and the shouts and screams were echoing all over the golf course as he marched up the leader board.

Daly had been causing reactions like this ever since his fairy-tale victory at the 1991 PGA. He had gotten into the field there as the ninth alternate, finding out on Wednesday that he was in after Nick Price had to withdraw because of the birth of his first child. Daly made another all-night drive, pulled into Indianapolis without a practice round, hired Jeff (Squeeky) Medlen as his caddy for the week, and won going away.

He was twenty-five years old, hit the ball distances no one had ever seen before, and had an innocent charm that everyone latched onto. He also had a drinking problem that everyone on tour knew about. His victory thrilled and concerned Deane Beman and company. They knew they had a new folk hero, but they also knew they had a time bomb on their hands.

The explosions hadn’t stopped since then. Early in 1992, Daly and his fiancée, Bettye Fulford, separated even though she was expecting their first child in June. At the Masters, Fulford had Daly served with palimony papers. A month later, they reconciled, got married, and Shynah was born in June. In December, police were called to their house in Colorado and Daly was arrested. Fulford opted not to press charges although she later alleged Daly had beaten her. Shortly after that, Beman suspended Daly from the tour, saying he could return after he had gone through alcohol rehabilitation.

Daly came back saying he was a new man and that he didn’t need any aftercare like Alcoholics Anonymous or professional counseling. He had been befriended by Hollywood Henderson, the ex-football player and recovering substance abuser, and all he needed, he said, was Hollywood. He played superbly at the Masters, finishing tied for third, but the year went downhill from there.

He was disqualified from one tournament for refusing to sign his scorecard after the first round, and he quit another one after nine holes. In August, at Peter Jacobsen’s charity event in Portland, he horrified Jacobsen and everyone else by turning around during a clinic and launching a drive over the heads of several thousand fans seated on a hillside. Jacobsen’s entire life and career passed before his eyes as Daly’s ball just cleared the heads of the amazed and frightened fans. For that stunt, Beman fined him $30,000 and told him there better not be another incident of any kind any time soon.

Daly lasted until early November, when during the second round of the Kapalua Invitational, he got disgusted with himself and, after missing a short putt, simply picked up his ball without putting out. That was an automatic disqualification. Worse, it came in the middle of a national cablecast and the entire country saw Daly blatantly give up in the middle of a round.

Beman had no choice now. He suspended Daly indefinitely. There are two unforgivable crimes in golf: cheating and quitting. Daly was one of the all-time recidivists when it came to quitting. That was the main reason Tom Watson never considered him for the Ryder Cup team.

Daly accepted his punishment, bought a condo in Palm Springs, and began preparing for his return. Everyone on tour wanted to see him get his life together. Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer had both offered to let Daly stay with them if he so desired. On Christmas Day, Tom Watson, who had dealt with alcoholism among friends and family, called Daly to tell him if he wanted someone to talk to about what he was going through, he was there for him anytime, anyplace.

“I just wanted him to know I was thinking of him that day,” Watson said. “We’re all touched by alcoholism in our lives in some way, and I didn’t want John to feel as if he was some kind of outcast because of what he was going through.”

Quite the contrary, everyone on tour did everything possible to make Daly feel accepted. They knew what his potential was as a player and as an ambassador for the game and they didn’t want to see him squander it before he turned thirty.

When Fuzzy Zoeller, his best friend on tour, visited him in Palm Springs shortly after New Year’s, he reported that Daly was hitting the ball farther than ever, practicing harder than ever, and eager to return. Beman, who had initially planned to let Daly come back after the Florida swing, moved his return up three weeks, to the Honda Classic. It probably wasn’t coincidence that the Honda traditionally drew the weakest field in Florida.

Daly said all the right things when he came back. He had learned his lesson and just wanted to work hard and play as well as he could. Still, his mood swings were mammoth. At Greensboro, two days before his 77–headshave–84 performance, he had held the shootout crowd in the palm of his hand all afternoon, signing autographs for kids, chatting with them, even asking one youngster for his autograph. It was two hours of warmth and fuzzies and Daly never stopped smiling.

Then came two days of whining and pouting. After that came seventh at Houston and now 69–64 at Atlanta. Who could figure Daly out? No one. Perhaps that was why Gary McCord had introduced him on the first tee during the shootout in Greensboro as “Fuzzy Zoeller’s science project.”

Henninger was sitting in the clubhouse finishing lunch when that afternoon’s cablecast came on the air. Naturally, Daly was the big story for TV, and they showed tape of almost every birdie he had made in the morning. Then a leader board popped on the screen, showing Daly leading someone named Henninger by two shots. That was when it first occurred to Henninger whom he was going to be playing with on Saturday.

“Oh my God,” he said, “unless someone gets to ten under, I’m playing with John.” He leaned back in his chair. “My first time ever in the last group and I’m playing with John Daly. Boy, is this going to be an experience.”

Henninger had played with Fred Couples at the Western Open the previous July, but that was different. Neither man was in serious contention to win the tournament, and they were five groups from the end. Even so, the gallery had been large and very pro-Couples.

This would be an entirely different experience. Not only was Daly leading the tournament, but his presence at the top of the leader board would bring several thousand people to Atlanta Country Club (aka the ACC) who would never think about buying a ticket to see any golfer in the world not named John Daly. “I guess I’ll hear a few ‘you-da-man’s,’ won’t I?” Henninger joked.

“You-da-man” had become the battle cry of the boorish golf fan. It was a yell usually reserved for moments when the screamer knew a TV microphone was nearby. Sometimes, the screamer didn’t bother waiting until a player had finished his downswing. The crowd that Daly brought out, many of whom had never been to a golf tournament before, would go bananas every time he drew the club back.

Henninger didn’t want to think about any of that. He was playing well and putting superbly. Three times on Friday he had made long putts to save par. He would just focus on his own game and not worry about Daly or the crowds.

Easier said than done. Henninger is not someone who can suppress his emotions, as had been evident on the first fairway Thursday afternoon. When he went to bed that night, he had visions of Daly hitting tee shots hundreds of yards past him as thousands of fans wearing baseball caps turned backward screeched “You-da-man” over and over again. He tossed and turned, turned and tossed. Finally, exhausted by it all, he slept.

Fortunately, with a 2:10 tee time, he could sleep in. The day was warm and sticky, with scudding clouds overhead threatening rain. When Henninger walked from the putting green to the first tee, he needed four marshals to get him through the crowd.

It would be that way all day. Fourteen marshals were assigned to Daly and every single one of them was needed. Watching them race down the fairways was a little bit like watching a president and his Secret Service detachment on the move. Walkie-talkies crackled: “Ten tee is secure, repeat, ten tee is secure”; two marshals walked stride-for-stride with Daly while others fanned out around the fairway to make sure no one jumped the ropes. Up ahead, the advance team made sure The Man would have a clear path to the next hole.

It was to the marshals’ credit that they never forgot about Henninger. They made sure that he and Mazziotti were escorted through the masses from each green to each tee, no small task on a golf course where many of the tees are a good-sized hike from the previous green.

It took Henninger several holes to get his bearings. No matter how hard he tried to ignore what was going on around him, he couldn’t. When Daly reached the par-five second hole in two and made a birdie to extend his lead to three shots, the massive gallery went stark raving mad. Daly just grinned his wide country grin, stuck his golf ball with the red Arkansas Razorback on the side onto a tee, and took another whack at the ball.

Henninger was shaken. He felt invisible. He was convinced that if he took all his clothes off, no one would notice. Occasionally, he heard comments like “That’s the other guy? He looks fourteen.” Or “This guy must feel like he’s a marker for John.”

But he hung in. Behind the baby face and the wide eyes, Henninger is a bulldog competitor. In 1992, he had won three events on the Nike Tour. “Any time he got into contention, he won,” Goydos said. “Some guys know how to bear down when the pressure’s greatest. Brian’s one of those guys.”

Under pressure like nothing he had ever felt in his life, Henninger bore down. He parred the first five holes, making tough up and downs on a couple of occasions. When Daly bogeyed the third hole and double-bogeyed the fourth after knocking a shot in the water, they were tied for the lead. Henninger got a second wind.

“I just decided that my support group were the people inside the ropes,” he said. “The marshals were great all day and I knew Cathy was there somewhere even though I couldn’t see her and I had [caddy] Chris too. That was all I needed. I knew all the others cared about was what John was doing. For a while, I got caught up in it, but then I found my comfort zone. I really didn’t mind what was going on. Hell, if I came out to a tournament, I’d want to go watch John hit it three hundred miles too.”

Daly and Henninger shared the lead until 16, when Daly rolled in a 25-foot birdie putt and Henninger missed the green and made bogey to fall two shots back. They both birdied 18 to shoot 69 and, when the long day was over, they were right where they had started: Daly at 202, Henninger at 204, and still 1–2 on the leader board. They would play together again on Sunday.

“It’s different now,” Henninger said. “I know now I can handle it, I’ve been through it. I know what tomorrow can mean to my career, but that’s okay. I’m in position now. That’s the hardest part.”

Not exactly.

Shortly after Henninger woke up the next morning he got a phone call from Goydos, who was about to tee off. “Just remember you’re a very good player,” Goydos said. “Just keep on doing what you’ve been doing.”

They talked about the overwhelming nature of the crowds. Goydos liked what he heard in Henninger’s voice. No fear, no trepidation. Anticipation.

The first nine holes were not what Henninger had hoped for or anticipated. He just wasn’t as sharp as he had been the first three days. With the crowds even larger and louder (if that was possible), Daly flew out of the box with birdies on the first two holes. At that stage, he led everyone by four shots. But, just as he had done on Saturday, he came back to the field, bogeying four and five. The problem for Henninger was that he bogeyed five and six and still trailed by four. What’s more, the rest of the field had now caught them. Daly was at 14 under, David Peoples was at 13; Nolan Henke and Bob Estes were at 12, and Davis Love was at 11. Henninger was tied for sixth. Not only were his chances of winning fading, but his chances of making a big enough check to nail down a spot in the top 125 for the year—or at least come close to it—were fading too.

On the PGA Tour, a player simply cannot afford to go backward on Sunday. Every bogey literally costs thousands of dollars. Ask a player who shoots an over-par round on Sunday after starting on the leader board how he did, and he will shake his head and say, “I spent a lot of cash today.”

Henninger couldn’t afford to spend any cash. He needed it all. Even though his focus was on winning the tournament, he knew that second place was worth $129,600 and third would pay $81,600. That meant that second would wrap up the top 125, since $130,000 was expected to be the magic number. Even a third-place finish would at least get him about 70 percent of the way to the promised dollar figure.

Two bogeys and no birdies on the front nine put all of that in jeopardy. Henninger finally stopped his spending spree on the 11th when he rolled in a 10-foot birdie putt to get back to 11 under. Daly had bogeyed the 10th and was tied for the lead with Peoples at 13 under. Henninger went into his grinding routine. He saved several tough pars over the next six holes, including one at the 17th when he made a 10-foot putt.

Goydos, who had shot 69 himself to move up to a tie for eleventh place, was tempted to go back out on the course and join the gallery if only so he could be sure that at least one person would be cheering for Henninger. But the place was just too packed. There was no way to get out to the last group.

He settled for watching on television in the press room and was infuriated by what he saw and heard. The story of the day for the media was not Brian Henninger. It was John Daly. Jaime Diaz of Sports Illustrated had flown in because Daly was leading. So had Larry Dorman of the New York Times. Like everyone else, they were rooting for their story. Their story was not a Daly loss.

Goydos finally couldn’t take it anymore. He left the press room and walked back to the 18th green to watch the last few groups come in. What he saw amazed him—and everyone else.

For a while, it seemed as if no one wanted to win the golf tournament. Love, after getting to 11 under, made two bogeys coming in and dropped to nine. Peoples, the co-leader for a while, missed a four-foot par putt at 18 to drop to 12 under.

When Peoples missed, Daly’s girlfriend, Paulette Deane, who was standing a few yards from the green, clapped excitedly. Standing next to her, Mark Russell, one of the tour’s rules officials, put an arm around her shoulder and said softly in his soothing southern accent, “Paulette, I think it would be better if you save your cheering for John.”

Deane had met Daly while working at the Hope Chrysler Classic in 1992. She was one of the three women who walked around wearing halter tops that said “Hope,” “Chrysler,” and “Classic.” Deane had been “Classic.” So she did know something about golf etiquette. “Sorry,” she said. “You’re right.”

Several minutes later, Nolan Henke—the defending champion—knocked his third shot at 18 to a foot and made a birdie. That put him in the clubhouse at 13 under. Peoples and Estes were at 12, and four players were tied at 11.

Standing on the 18th tee, Daly knew he needed a birdie to break the tie with Henke and win the tournament. Henninger was less sure about his situation. He knew he was two shots behind Daly and he suspected there was a logjam at 11 and 12 under because he knew 18 was a birdie hole.

The 18th hole at the ACC is considered one of the best finishing holes on tour. It is a relatively short par-five, a dogleg left that is reachable in two for most players. But there is danger all around the green: water to the front and left; bunkers left, right, and behind; and gnarly rough just about anyplace else. The green is huge and the Sunday pin placement is almost always the same: front left, meaning if you want to get anywhere close, both the water and the bunkers come into play.

Players must make all sorts of decisions at 18, which is why the hole is considered so perfect for the climax of a golf tournament. On the tee, Henninger saw Daly take out his driver and aim at a huge oak tree right at the corner of the dogleg. Even for Daly, hitting the ball over the tree seemed impossible.

Only it wasn’t. The ball took off like a rocket, climbed over the tree, and landed on the left side of the fairway, 340 yards from the tee. Standing in what he thought would be the landing area, CBS’s Gary McCord was stunned when he heard a thump 50 yards behind him and turned around to see Daly’s ball.

Henninger knew he couldn’t hit the ball there, but he had to get it far enough to take a crack at the green. He hit his driver solidly, not cutting nearly as much off the corner as Daly. For normal humans, he hit a fine drive. It ended up 50 yards behind Daly.

Up at the green, the crowd had become—with apologies to Jack Whitaker—a mob. They were screaming and hollering for Daly to be da Man and win the tournament. Frank Chirkinian, who has produced golf at CBS for several centuries, has always wondered why golf is the only sport in which most fans pull against the underdog. “I don’t know what it is with golf fans,” he said. “They want to see their heroes win. They want the stars to shine on Sunday. They don’t mind if some unknown has the lead on Thursday or Friday, but by Sunday they want him out of the way.

“I looked out there in Atlanta and I saw this skinny little kid [Henninger] playing his heart out just trying to get a spot on the tour and I’m thinking, what a great story this kid is. No one out there knew he was alive. They wanted him out of the way for John Daly. Any other sport, they would have been for Henninger.”

Maybe fans just want to root for someone they can identify. Whether it is Palmer with the hitch in his pants; Norman with his white-blond hair; Watson with his gap-toothed grin; or Daly with his Popeye forearms, shaggy blond hair (when it isn’t shaved), and monstrous behind-the-ear swing.

Many people saw Daly as the Palmer of the 1990s, the blue-collar player to whom everyone could relate. He had none of Palmer’s charm or humor, but he did bring the crowds out and rev them up to levels of fanaticism not seen since Palmer.

One thing made Daly unique: the ability to hit the ball farther than anyone had ever hit it. But he also came across as a sympathetic character, someone who had come from no money to huge money and was still fighting demons every single day—real or imagined. He looked more like someone you would bump into at the counter of a truck stop than in the grill room of a country club, and he sounded like it too. Daly would never say, “I had an eight-iron left to the pin” but, “I hit me an eight-iron.”

Now, as he walked to his monster drive, the crowd was going berserk. After two days of this, Henninger finally had become immune. All he was thinking about was his second shot. He was 212 yards from the flag, and a lot of that distance would be over water if he tried to get the ball close. Sitting in the tower behind the 18th green, CBS’s Ken Venturi watched Henninger study the shot and wanted to run down to him and yell, “Don’t go for the pin!”

“He can’t go for the pin here,” Venturi said to his partner, Jim Nantz. “If he makes birdie and gets to twelve, he’s going to make a big check and take a big step toward getting his card back. No one’s been close to this pin all day anyway. He can’t chance that water and make a bogey. He needs to think about his card.”

Henninger wasn’t thinking about his card. He was thinking about winning. The only way to win was to make an eagle, get to 13 under, and hope Daly didn’t birdie the hole. What he didn’t know was that no one had eagled the hole all day. Davis Love had tried to go at the flag an hour earlier and pulled his shot way left—behind the scoreboard—and made bogey. Getting close to the pin was an almost impossible task. No one had done it yet.

Henninger had to try. He was between a three-iron and a four-iron. Normally, he would have hit three, but he could feel his heart pounding and he knew he was pumping adrenaline all over the place. Three felt like too much. He pulled the four. Sitting in the clubhouse at Greenville, South Carolina, where he had just finished his last round in the Nike Tournament, Jeff Cook saw his friend take dead aim at the flag. “Oh my God, he’s going for it,” Cook said. He looked down and saw that his hands were shaking.

Henninger’s were not. He swung as hard as he could, but stayed down through the ball all the way. The ball soared over the water and straight at the pin. Henninger held his breath. “Look at this shot!” Venturi yelled. The ball landed just past the pin, took one bounce, and skidded to a halt eight feet away.

Henninger heard the crowd roar—more in surprise than anything else—but he didn’t need to. He knew he had nailed the shot as soon as it came off the club. “The biggest shot of my life and I never hit a ball better,” he said.

Jeff Cook was on his feet. “Way to go, Brian!” he yelled, causing heads to turn in his direction.

All eyes now turned to Daly. He was only 172 yards from the flag and he decided to hit him an eight-iron. But the ball was left all the way and it flew into the left bunker. It was pin high, though, and not in that tough a spot to get up and down from.

As Daly marched to the green, the noise grew louder and louder. Henninger paused on the fairway to check the leader board. As he had hoped on Thursday evening, his name was still on it. He wanted to know exactly what the situation was. The board told him: if he made this putt and Daly didn’t make a birdie, the two of them and Henke would play off; if he made his and Daly did make birdie, he and Henke would tie for second; if he missed the putt and made a birdie, he would tie for third with Estes and Peoples.

He finally turned to walk on the green with one thought: I have to make this putt to have a chance to win.

Henninger walked onto the final green the same way he had walked onto the first tee: virtually ignored. A few people clapped for his extraordinary shot, but 99 percent were focused on Daly as he dug his feet into the bunker. Henninger went and stood near the back of the green waiting for Daly to play his shot. He could feel himself shaking with nerves and excitement. He had to calm himself before it was his turn to putt. “I just went away for a few seconds,” he said. In his mind’s eye, he saw not the 18th green at the ACC, but a lake. He and his brother were fishing and it was very quiet and he was very calm…

Daly hit an excellent bunker shot to about four feet. Henninger knew he would probably make it. That didn’t matter now. He lined his putt up carefully, took a deep breath, and rolled it dead center. Eagle! Venturi was shouting about how remarkable it was to make three on the hole, and Jeff Cook was jumping up and down and screaming at the television set. Henninger calmly walked to the side of the green to give the stage back to Daly.

Daly lined the putt up quickly, hit it perfectly, and shook his first as the ball went in the hole. The green was shaking with noise. Henninger came over to congratulate him and the two of them hugged. They had played 36 holes together, and Henninger had shot 69–71 to Daly’s 69–72. Daly’s two-shot margin on Friday had ended up a one-shot margin.

While the pandemonium continued on the green, Henninger made his way through all the volunteers to the scorer’s tent. Mark Russell stopped him. “That was as good a shot as I’ve seen in all my years out here, Brian,” he said. “You should be proud.”

Henninger was proud. He wanted to find Cathy and hug her and hug Carlin and collapse with exhaustion and joy. He had made $105,600. By making eagle instead of birdie he had earned an extra $43,200. He now had made $112,400 for the year, meaning he didn’t have far to go to clinch his card. He could stop worrying about whether to play Nike events or regular tour events. He was back with the big boys.

Daly made the headlines and got the trophy and the biggest check and a hug from Paulette Deane. He told the throngs around 18 that he couldn’t have done it without them and, his voice cracking, dedicated the victory to his daughter. “The most important thing about this,” he said, “is that I know now I can win a golf tournament sober.”

For the PGA Tour the idea of a sober John Daly winning golf tournaments was exciting to contemplate. There was no doubting the electricity he brought to a leader board.

Most people thought it would be remembered as the weekend when John Daly turned a corner. Very few gave much thought at all to the notion that Brian Henninger had turned a corner too.