Qualified Success

Sanchez's game got better and better, thanks to blistering practice sessions before and after work at Paly (the Holiday Inn was just a bad memory by now). His English kept pace, thanks to night school. Having hidden for so long in the kitchen, Sanchez found in golf the confidence to unveil his sharp wit and considerable personality. Soon he was part of the culture down at the course. "In one year he went from carving our turkey to being the most popular partner in our action," says Bill Koenig, a onetime Paly regular, who has also been a one-man Team Sanchez fan club at the last three U.S. Opens. Sanchez's burgeoning interest in golf led him out of the kitchen, and onto the greenkeeping staff, and he used to cruise the course on his tractor, heckling the other players. The onetime dishwasher would eventually win four straight club championships. "Javier is still a legend around here," says Pollex.

In time he came to the attention of Jerry Drever, the golf coach at Cañada Community College in Redwood City. Sanchez made Drever's team, shooting a smooth 66 during one of the tryout rounds, and as a 29-year-old freshman he led Cañada to its first state juco championship, in 1988. He was also the individual winner. Just as remarkable was that this seventh-grade dropout was making B's in his English and agronomy classes. (Those study habits served him well, as that year he aced his exams to become a U.S. citizen.) "So much of Javier's success is because of where he has come from," says Drever. "He has a tremendous desire and work ethic. He is unflappable because he has such a broad perspective." Still, says Drever, "none of us ever dreamed Javier would go on to play pro golf. Not even Javier."

That all changed in 1989, when Sanchez won four city championships in the Bay Area and played well in two Hogan (now Nike) tour events as well as in a number of national amateur tournaments, including the U.S. Mid-Am and Publinx. In 1990 he struck out for the Jordan (now Rooters) tour in the South. The boys back at Paly muni threw a farewell fund-raiser, and more than 100 friends turned out. No one had ever seen Sanchez cry before that day. Javier felt as if he were leaving home for the second time.

Unfortunately Sanchez, like so many other dreamers, found the minor league golf circuits ferociously competitive and almost prohibitively expensive. In his six seasons he has just scraped by. "I have faith," he says. "Sometimes that's all I have."

After failing twice in local Open qualifying, in 1993 Sanchez played well enough to become the first alternate. The day before the Open he was at a Podunk tournament in St. Louis called the Bogey Hills Invitational when word came from the USGA that Billy Ray Brown had blown out his wrist. It was five in the evening. Sanchez's tee time was less than 20 hours away. The trip to Baltusrol, in Springfield, N.J., was such a whirlwind that the magnitude of playing in the Open didn't hit Sanchez until he stepped onto the 1st tee. "When the starter called my name," he says, "my arms went numb."

Still, his drive was straight as six o'clock, and Sanchez played the first seven holes in even par. He got a jolt on the 8th tee when he saw his name on the bottom of a leader board. It was all downhill putts from there, as Sanchez faded to a 78 (followed by a 77 on Friday to miss the cut), but he was so thrilled that he spent Thursday night calling every friend he could think of, and in particular a flight attendant named Cynthia Haskins, with whom he had been flirting for a couple of weeks. "Javier was so excited, but he didn't have anyone to share it with," says Cynthia. So she flew to New Jersey on Friday to surprise him, and they've been together ever since, marrying in 1995. They have a baby boy, Nicholas.

In 1994 Sanchez drained a spectacular 50-footer for birdie on the last hole of qualifying to earn a trip to Oakmont. There he had what he calls his biggest thrill in golf, a practice round with his hero, Seve Ballesteros, as well as José María Olazábal, who at the time was the reigning Masters champ. Alas, Sanchez missed the cut, just as he would in '95 at Shinnecock Hills. "I was still in awe of everything," he says. "I kept thinking, These guys are all millionaires!"

This year he came in confident, feeling as if he finally belonged, and it showed during his carefree 71 on Thursday. At one point, after leaving a long birdie putt Velcroed on the edge of the cup, Sanchez smiled and said to the gallery, "Una tortilla más." That afternoon, instead of beating balls on the range until sundown, as he might have in the past, Sanchez played hooky and spent the early evening frolicking in the hotel pool with Nicholas, whom he calls Pancho.

On Friday, the day of so much carnage at this year's Open, Sanchez opened with a double bogey and had to battle the course the rest of the way. It wasn't until a clutch birdie at 17 that he clinched a tee time on the weekend. Thirteen others from local qualifying made the cut, led by Stewart Cink, who shot five-over 285 to finish 16th. The $5,135 Sanchez earned was his first paycheck of the year because an old soccer injury to his right knee has flared up and limited him to two Nike events. It was the first good news in what has been a trying year and a half. Much of last season was spent on the sidelines taking care of Nicholas, who has Down's syndrome and was born with two holes in his heart that forced open-heart surgery at age three months. The little charmer has recovered swimmingly, and now, at 19 months, is sharp enough to know how to work the remote control. That puts him about 15 years ahead of his dad's schedule.

In the Friday twilight, after getting congratulatory kisses from Nicholas and Cynthia, who caddied for him last week, and felicidades from a dozen other well-wishers, Sanchez looked out at the emerald fairways of Oakland Hills and tried to find the words for how he felt. "I'm happy," he said. "I'm happy to have come this far."