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DEL.ICIO.USImprobable storyline unfolding at East Lake
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Three days you have been expecting the clock to strike midnight. For the wicked old witch to tell Bart Bryant his party is over, back to the scullery. That Bart Bryants don’t win the big one. (ABC, the television network, doesn’t believe in fairy tales, either. Those dudes shut off the Tour Championship Saturday just before he holed out of the bunker on the 18th hole.) Saturday a headline read, “Tiger 3 Shots Back After a 67.” Well, Tiger is now four shots back after another 67. Three days the No. 1 player in the world has been chasing the No. 40 player and the gap isn’t shrinking. And between them, there is Retief Goosen, No. 4 and the defending champion at East Lake Golf Club.
By this time they should be getting acquainted, but Bryant says Goosen doesn’t say much, and neither does he.
“He’s the nicest guy in the world, but he just doesn’t say much,” Bryant said. “He’s just a quiet fellow. I was paired with him at the Buick in Michigan and I felt very inferior to him.”
I’ll say this, that I thought we were sitting in on a shocking story in the fourth round here last year. Goosen began the day four strokes back of Woods and wound up four strokes ahead of him. It was a drop-dead round for this man of few words.
Now, this is another amazing kind of story again that East Lake is witness to. Here is Barton Holan Bryant — how’s that for a Western movie sheriff’s name, and with his moustache, he could play the part — riding herd on the 28 other highest earners on the PGA Tour this year. Until last year, he had been without a tour card since 1991, and he had his card last year only through a medical exemption.
Three times he has had surgery. He had more scars than the loser in a saloon brawl. Six times he had been to qualifying school. He was getting to be 42 years old and nothing was happening. Did he ever think that sons of a Baptist minister weren’t destined to grow up golf shooters? The family left Gatesville, Texas when he was two, and he did most of his growing up in Alamogordo, New Mexico. His older brother, Brad, has become a player and done well. Now, you’re growing into your 40’s and you’re still hacking your way through the wilderness.
It all began to change this year when he won Jack Nicklaus’s Memorial Tournament and finished the season 22nd on the PGA money list, and miracles were happening. The bunker shot that finished off the day was “fairly routine,” he said. “It was about 25 feet, I guess. It just hit the pin and dropped in.”
Now, three days in a row and you look for the bottom to drop out. This is not the easiest tournament to attack for a guy who has never been found in the front section of the PGA Tour Guide, where the rich guys live. Tiger Woods has won the Tour Championship only once — and that in Texas. He has never been a strong finisher at East Lake, 20th once, 7th once, second twice, to Goosen last year and to Vijay Singh in 2002.
“I guess there’s something magical about it,” Bryant said. “The No. 1 player in the world, and the No. 4 and I’ve got to go out there against them tomorrow. What I need to do is keep the ball in the fairway and make some putts, then I’ll have a chance. Look, I had a five-stroke lead one time yesterday, and it was gone in four holes, or something. It can change fast out here.”
I’ve been to a lot of these things and seen a lot of amazing finishes. But if Bart Bryant wins this one, it will be the most amazing of all. Just to hold the lead three days in a row, for a guy who has never been there before, that’s amazing enough.
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