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Janzen eyes Open repeat

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Posted: Monday June 14, 1999 10:03 PM

Lee Janzen has won two U.S. Opens in this decade. Yet somehow he is not a major celebrity and each year when he returns to the Open, he is not ranked among the elite group of favorites. This is not a bad thing. Fame is overrated. A little respect wouldn't be bad, though.

"Like on ESPN, when they show the scores of other notable players, I'm never a notable," Janzen said. "I don't know what you have to do to be a notable."

When SportsCenter showed highlights of Tiger Woods winning the Memorial last weekend, Janzen was again not listed among the other notables. Maybe he is the Larry Nelson of the '90s, a really solid player who plays his best in big events but -- because he is perceived to be low on the charisma scale (like Nelson, he's actually witty and a good interview) -- who never really gets his due. As defending champion for next week's U.S. Open at Pinehurst, Janzen is sure to get his share of attention. Check out the pre-tournament predictions, though, and you'll no doubt see a heavy load of Woods, David Duval, Ernie Els and Justin Leonard, and probably not much Janzen.

Maybe it's because of Janzen's inconsistent nature. When he plays well, like his inspired comeback win against José María Olazábal in the last Ryder Cup or at the Players Championship, he looks like the best player in the world. Then he goes three years without a victory, from the 1995 Sprint International to last year's U.S. Open, and you begin to wonder. The fact is, Janzen plays well in U.S. Open conditions. In addition to two wins in the last six years, he had had two other good finishes: He tied for 13th at Shinnecock Hills in 1995 and would've finished among the top five if not for a double bogey on the 71st hole; he tied for 10th at Oakland Hills the next year despite an early round triple-bogey.

He plays well in Opens because he hits his irons high, lands them soft and has better-than-average distance control. He also likes strategy golf, which Opens demand, and developed his own preparation strategy when he won at Baltusrol in 1993.

"Once I got there [Baltusrol], I said, 'I'm not going to do anything new,'" Janzen said. "I've been playing well for four weeks, there's no reason to get all excited. I just went there and relaxed and played well. It's hard for me to not go out and play 18 holes every day. The next year at Oakmont, I wore myself out because I was defending champion and I wanted so badly to do well. I could hardly stay awake the first day. I hit balls and hit balls and hit balls. I had just won the week before at Westchester, too, so there was no need to press. I guess because I won I thought, O.K., I'm close, with a little hard work I can get that extra little bit out of it. At Shinnecock Hills, I just enjoyed the golf course and I played pretty well.

"Last year's U.S. Open helped me at the Masters this year. I went there and didn't worry so much about preparing. I've played there eight years and know everything you need to know about the course. All you've got to do is hit good shots. That's the difference. You don't have to know the course better than anybody else, you just have to hit good shots."

Janzen opened the Memorial with a 65 and was impressive. He didn't play as well the rest of the week, finishing two under par, 13 shots behind Woods. "I've got less to work on this week than I did a year ago," Janzen said.

That fact could prove notable.

IT'S JUST BUSINESS: Jack Nicklaus' presence is felt almost everywhere around the Muirfield Village Golf Club. Dublin, Ohio, is practically Nicklausville. That's why it seems so striking to see Arnold Palmer's face on a billboard a scant few blocks north of the Muirfield housing area. It's the entrance to a new residential community and Palmer-designed golf course called Tartan Fields, a finely manicured example of '90s architecture. The greens are undulating and tour quick. The best part may be the clubhouse, styled after Shinnecock Hills and a case of restrained elegance. It is designed to be a golf clubhouse, cozy and friendly, not a banquet hall. Memberships, starting at $35,000, are selling briskly.

THE SHORT GAME: With Father's Day set to fall on Open Sunday again, let's note that Janzen has gone more than two weeks without seeing his son, Connor, 5 1/2, only once, and only as long as two weeks a handful of times. ... A major coincidence? Janzen played at World Woods, a Brooksville, Fla., resort course that recently cracked the Top 100 rankings, the week before he won the Open last year. Mark O'Meara played there a few months before he won last year's Masters and went back in early summer, not long before he won the British Open. ... Nobody asked, but on my ballot of America's top courses, Shinnecock Hills would be No. 1.

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Gary Van Sickle is a regular contributor to the magazine's Golf Plus edition. Click here to send him a question or comment.

 

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