The Noble Loser

A friend of mine and I spent the better part of Friday afternoon arguing if, in fact, Tom Lehman and Rick Fehr were the same person. Another clone that Deane Beman and the Tour Fairies could be proud of, from the all-exempt Top 125 to the Masters Top 10 quicker than you can say "Q-School."

[Definition: Tour Clone--1. Any golfer on Tour who can't be identified in a lineup including Fred Funk, Bill Glasson and Mike Standly. 2. The guy playing with Jack and Arnie, or the Shark and Freddy, that you don't recognize.]

Well, Sunday night, after yet another glorious Augusta afternoon, my stomach is in knots once again. And I owe thanks to Lehman, and probably an apology.

First of all, I've discovered, Tour Clones go to school at UCLA. Or Oklahoma State. Or Arizona.

And not the University of Minnesota. Where the golf season is as short as the 12th at Augusta, keeping Lehman's prodigious driving length in check into almost May and June during his formulative years.

Secondly, Tour Clones succeed, paradoxically, through their mediocrity. Just a top-ten finish here and there scattered among 30 or 35 starts is usually enough to keep a player in the Top 125 on the money list...qualifying him for a return trip to the Tour, where he can again dazzle galleries by finishing eighth at the Kemper and eleventh at Greensboro.

Lehman dropped out of sight for seven years--breaking the Tour's metaphysical mirror exiled him to Asia, South Africa and other such hotspots of international goodwill, until some sizzling play on the then-Hogan Tour ended his seven-year itch to get back with the big boys.

And most importantly, Tour Clones play well in the Masters only before Sunday, when the mad dogs and Englishmen (or) Welshmen, or Germans, or Spaniards) come out in the noonday sun to mop up the rest of the field.

But despite every prediction to the contrary, Lehman stood on the 18th tee only a shot behind Jose Maria Olazabal. His course management flawless, his shot execution nerveless, Lehman had parried the best broadsides from the newest galleon in the Spanish Armada, and victory still lay within his grasp.

And but for several achingly small inches, he might so easily had ended the valet's search up and down the closet for Augusta's newest green jacket.

Six inches less on Olazabal's second shot to the par-five 15th would have sent his ball careening down the slippery slope to a watery grave--a near-certain bogey-six, not the eagle-three he eventually corralled by holing a putt of no minimal length.

And slips twixt lip and cup foiled Lehman's three critical putts down the stretch--for eagle on 15, for birdie on 16 and 17--any of which, had one dropped, could have over-burdened Olazabal's churning mind.

Alas, Lehman's par at 17 could only bring him within one. But even having failed so narrowly in closing the gap on his three most recent holes, the neophyte still did not panic. On the 18th tee, out came the 1-iron--the smart play. The only play.

One-down at 18, you have to give the other guy the chance to screw up. That's what Lehman tried to do: eliminate the bunkers on the left side of the fairway that gape 256 yards away.

Only then did his inexperience show. Adrenalin can do strange things to you, even make you hit a 1-iron 260 yards uphill. Sandy Lyle found that out himself in 1988--he also found the beach with his too-long long-iron.

Of course, had Lehman hit out of the bunker to within eight feet of the flagstick, as did Lyle, or had his pulled shot skirted the bunker on the left, as it came within inches of doing, he might not have to live with the criticism that shall inevitably come. [Just ask Chip Beck.]

But even though he wound up losing to this newest incarnation of Hogan, the dashing Spaniard with the perpetually stern countenance, I learned something. Tom Lehman told reporters that he "put his heart and soul" into that putt he stroked on 15.

Yes, he missed it. But Tour Clones don't have the heart and the soul to create such a magical Masters.