Kite
Not One To Shy Away From Challenge
Any
Open Is 'Hardest But Most Honest Test Of Golf'
By
Dave Shedloski
Hard
golf does not bother Tom Kite.
He
doesn’t dread it. He doesn’t fear it. He just accepts it.
When he arrives at Caves Valley Golf Club in Owings Mills,
Md., for this week’s U.S. Senior Open, he’s hoping to encounter
a stern test of golf.
 |
| Tom
Kite is hoping for better results at the Senior Open.
He missed the cut at the U.S. Open, shooting a first-round
10-over 80 and second round 3-over 73. (USGA Photo Archives) |
“If
you can’t enjoy the challenge, then there’s no point, really,
in showing up,” Kite says.
He
is sitting in front of his locker, wringing out his socks,
as he says this. The locker is in the clubhouse at Bethpage
State Park in Farmingdale, N.Y., site of the recently contested
102nd U.S. Open, and Kite has just completed
his second round on the Black Course. The hour is closing
in on 8 p.m., rain has fallen all day and Kite happens to
be one of 155 players who were subjected to one of the most
difficult days in the history of the national championship.
Bethpage
Black, at 7,214 yards, was the longest course in Open history
and exacted a heavy toll on the field the second day when
chilly breezes and constant precipitation turned the par-70
layout into a monstrous test. The field scoring average
soared to 76.478 and the cut of 10-over-par 150 was the
third highest in the annals of the U.S. Open.
Kite,
who with Hale Irwin was one of the two Senior PGA Tour players
in the championship, was a casualty of the cut, but a survivor
that day, having shot a 73. Pretty good for a 52 year old,
let alone a golfer of any age.
And
while criticism of the golf course or its setup flowed as
freely as the rainwater that day, Kite held a dry eye as
well as his perspective.
“The
setup was fine, but the course got very difficult in the
conditions,” Kite says. “It was definitely one of the toughest
days I can remember playing golf in, but I managed all right.
I’m worn out, but I’m pretty happy with the way I played.”
Kite
was invited to this Open championship for what he did on
another difficult day 10 years before. In the 1992 U.S.
Open at Pebble Beach Golf Links, Kite cobbled together a
final-round 72 in high winds – while the field averaged
more than 77 – and claimed his only major championship.
The performance is regarded as one of the finest in the
game’s history, given the pressure and the stakes.
Kite
wouldn’t argue.
“Given
the situation, yes, it was probably the best round of golf
I ever played,” he says. “I’ve had some great rounds of
golf in my career, but that final round was definitely the
highlight of my career, not so much because I won a major
championship, but how I won it.”
Kite
would dearly love to add a Senior Open to his resume. Winner
of 19 PGA Tour titles, and three more on the Senior Tour,
including the 2000 Countrywide Tradition, the Austin, Texas,
native has a deep appreciation for the national championship,
and he would become only the eighth man in golf history
to win the U.S. Open and the U.S. Senior Open.
“It’s
definitely something you want to have on your resume,” he
says with a grin.
Like
Bethpage Black, Caves Valley is an unknown quantity. The
Tom Fazio design opened in 1991, making it the youngest
course ever to host the U.S. Senior Open. Kite says it doesn’t
matter. He will be ready.
“You
know what you’re going to get when you go to an Open,” he
says. “It will be a great test of golf, the hardest but
most honest test of golf. It doesn’t matter where they hold
it, you have to be ready, and I sure hope to be. I’m looking
forward to it.”
Indeed.
He’ll show up, because he enjoys the challenge.
Dave
Shedloski is a freelance writer whose work has appeared
previously on www.usopen.com
and www.ussenioropen.com.
