The Week: Wild and Crazy

The dog days of the season produced the most entertaining golf of the year

By Gary Van Sickle

Beem thought he had won after making eagle at 17. Darren Carroll GOLF PLUS EXTRA My Shot: Mark Wiebe Teeing Off: May the Best Man Lose Big Play: Lynn Marriott TRUST ME Case closed on the debate over using the modified Stableford scoring system at a Tour event. The fantastic finish at the International, featuring Steve Lowery's double eagle at 17, wasn't just great TV, but it was also great golf. Stableford scoring is fun, fast-paced and conducive to heroic shots. NEXT UP PGA: Buick Open Senior: 3M Championship LPGA: Weetabix Women's British Open European: Celtic Manor Resort Wales Open INSTANT POLL Which 2003 major was the best? The Masters The U.S. Open The British Open The PGA View Results

Ernie Els sat by a television in the Castle Pines locker room, mesmerized as the International's unlikely climax unfolded. Sergio García watched in awe too. "This is unbelievable," Els said, shaking his head. "I can't believe a guy can shoot 63 and almost not win."

Els was talking about a frenetic finish during which Rich Beem racked up seven birdies and an eagle, yet barely survived Steve Lowery's birdie, eagle, double-eagle finish. But the International wasn't the only thrilling tournament last weekend, and Els could just as well have been referring to the entire golf scene, as we were reminded again that the game is bigger than its stars. Tiger Woods was nowhere in sight. Neither were Phil Mickelson or Annika Sorenstam, yet Sunday was the most exciting day of the season.

The International was an impossible Hollywood fantasy thanks to its wacky (but a good wacky) modified Stableford system in which players score points based on how they do on a hole. The system turned what might have been a runaway by Beem, who birdied six of the first 10 holes in the final round, into the stuff of legend. "Besides Nicklaus and Watson in that British Open [1977], I don't know of any round that's gotten completely hairy like the one today," said Beem. "It was wild."

Struggling to control his emotions after he'd finished ahead of Lowery and led by one point, Beem watched Lowery narrowly miss a putt at 18 that would've won the tournament. Then Beem tearfully embraced his wife, Sara.

It was not the day's only dramatic ending. Mi Hyun Kim of South Korea and Graeme McDowell of Northern Ireland both won after surviving potential disasters. Kim splashed her tee shot on the island-green 71st hole at the Wendy's Championship in Dublin, Ohio. LPGA officials studied TV replays of her shot before ruling that her ball hadn't crossed the hazard line. Forced to replay her tee shot, Kim made a double bogey but saved par on the final hole to earn her second victory in three weeks. "Golf is a difficult game," Kim said. McDowell, the nation's top college player last year at Alabama-Birmingham, shanked a bunker shot over a green into a pond on the final nine but recovered to make a par from a fairway bunker on the final hole to win the Scandinavian Masters in Stockholm by a shot.

Elsewhere, Jay Delsing and Hubert Green made tournament-winning putts as well. Delsing, who saw his four-shot lead in the Omaha Classic evaporate, jarred a six-footer on the final hole to win his second Buy.com tour event. His ailing father, Jim, who played for the 1949 world champion New York Yankees, was watching on TV from his home in St. Louis. "I thought, I hope I make this for you, Dad," said Delsing. Green and Hale Irwin endured a seven-hole playoff at a Senior tour event on Long Island before Green, who had paused in the 9th fairway during the final round to give himself an insulin shot, ended it by making a 35-foot birdie putt.

Emotions ran highest in Pittsburgh at the Curtis Cup, the big team event for women amateurs. The U.S. team held off a late charge by Great Britain and Ireland to win 11-7, and it was local hero Carol Semple Thompson, 53, who scored the clinching point. She came from three down to win her singles match against Vikki Laing, closing in style with a 27-foot birdie putt on the final hole. "Carol played the strongest player on their team and beat her," said a breathless Mary Budke, the U.S. captain.

Beem best embodied the day's emotions. Before the trophy presentation, he rushed onto the 18th green, grabbed the flagstick, twirled it around his head and removed the flag. Then he fired the pin, javelin-style, into the back bunker.

Now that was wild.

O.B.