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Notebook: Unlucky Charm Sanders's British DisasterBy Jaime Diaz
 When Doug Sanders flashes back to the 1970 British Open at St. Andrews, he remembers the white tee. "I was superstitious," says the 66-year-old Sanders. "I always tossed my cigarette away between my legs, and I never used a white tee. A white tee to me always meant a five." On the 72nd hole of the '70 Open, however, with Sanders needing only a par 4 on the 350-yard hole to win the claret jug, Willie Aitchison, who was caddying for Sanders's playing partner, Lee Trevino, handed Sanders a white tee and said, "Here, hit this one for Tony." The tee was one that Tony Lema had used to win at St. Andrews in '64, when he had been Sanders's houseguest. Two years later Lema had died in a plane crash on Sanders's birthday, July 24. Sanders, a close friend, had nearly boarded the doomed plane. "That caddie had no earthly idea that I didn't use white tees," says Sanders. "He was only thinking of a good buddy of ours. I couldn't say no, so I used it." Before that Open, Sanders had essentially lost his game, years of hard living affecting his nerves to the point that he would often spend 30 seconds waggling and adjusting his feet before taking the club back. His play at St. Andrews had been solid, though, and he hit another good drive on the final hole. But Sanders can't forget the feeling he had walking down the 18th fairway. "Something negative had been triggered," he says. "I knew by using that tee I had broken my own trend, and it made me uneasy." Sanders had only 76 yards to the hole over the Valley of Sin and chose a sand wedge. Because he was a master of the pitch and run, this decision has been questioned, but Sanders thought that flying the ball over the valley was the right shot. "If I had tried to run it up and it had come back to me, imagine what people would have said. I just hit it a little too hard." Still, Sanders needed only to two-putt from 35 feet. After his first putt stopped three feet short, he again thought about the white tee, and that's when he lost his poise. "Lee was away, but I decided to putt out," says Sanders, his voice quickening as he relives the moment. "I never putted out, and there was no reason to do it now because it would have been rude to Lee, but there I was doing it. I got over the putt and saw a little speck by the hole that I thought was sand, so I bent over. It turned out to be a piece of burned grass, but my stopping had caused some people to laugh kind of nervously. So I got over the putt again, and I started thinking that maybe I should let Lee putt out and, Gee, Doug, you've been standing over this thing a long time, and look at all the people out in the fairway, and maybe I'll mark, and no, I'll go ahead and hit it and. ... It was fatal." The sickening sight of Sanders letting go of the grip with his right hand and following the ball with the head of the putter as if to rake it back is the archetypical picture of a missed pressure putt. The next day Sanders lost an 18-hole playoff to Jack Nicklaus by a stroke when Nicklaus birdied the last hole. Sanders still has a letter from Jack Lemmon congratulating him on how bravely he had come back after his devastating miss the day before. Sanders also remembers Barbara Nicklaus approaching him and his wife, Scotty, and softly saying, "Doug, you should have won the British Open." Jean Van de Velde's 72nd-hole debacle last year was shocking, but it lacked the pathos of Sanders's loss. Sanders won 20 times on the regular Tour, but today he is no longer exempt on the Senior tour, and he has trouble getting sponsors' exemptions. He pays the bills by doing corporate outings, two of which are scheduled in San Diego during the British Open. "You know, I don't know whatever happened to that tee," he says, laughing. "That's life."
Open Records: In case you hadn't noticed, the last three USGA Opens produced record scores. Juli Inkster began the cycle at last year's Women's Open at Old Waverly in West Point, Miss., where her 16\!under-par 272 was six strokes more under par than any other winning performance in the championship's history. Tiger Woods's 12-under 272 at Pebble Beach was four strokes more under par than any previous winner's. Finally, Hale Irwin's 17-under 267 at Saucon Valley two weeks ago broke the Senior Open records for total score and for number of strokes under par by three. Has the USGA, which favors a winning score right around par, gone soft? No, says Tim Moraghan, director of agronomy for USGA championships. In the case of the Women's and Senior Opens, the biggest reason for the low scoring was heavy rain on the eve of the tournaments. "There was no wind at either event, and the players were throwing darts in there," he says. "We got it just right at Pebble Beach, because the next best score to Tiger's was three over. Also, as amazing as Tiger was, he got some breaks with the weather." Moraghan says that because "untimely rain is the one thing we can't control," he would like to see the USGA cover the greens with portable tents at future Opens. "But as far as how we set up the courses, we don't have any regrets," he says. As for the immediate future -- the Women's Open next week at the Merit Club near Chicago, the 2001 U.S. Open at Southern Hills in Tulsa and the next Senior Open, at Salem Country Club in Peabody, Mass. -- Moraghan says the USGA intends to stick to its game plan. Issue date: July 17, 2000
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