Grace makes history but admits he was unaware of major record
A round of 62 appeared to be only the stuff of dreams before South African stepped up to nail total
When Phil Mickelson missed a 62 by fractions at last year’s Open, with a lasthole lip-out, he claimed to have been denied by malevolent outside forces – a local Troon curse, perhaps, or a hidden greenkeeper’s hand.
Branden Grace, mercifully, had no such thoughts yesterday when he stood on Royal Birkdale’s 18th green and stroked in the three-foot knee“I trembler that gave him the first 62 witnessed at a men’s major championship. Until his caddie, Zack Resago, informed him of the significance once the putt dropped, he had no idea that he had recorded a round for posterity.
In this, the 442nd major staged in golf, the mystifying failure of the game’s greats to notch up a 62 in the grandest setting had been attributed to a curse. The 63 Club includes some pre-eminent names: Greg Norman and Nick Price, both of whom did it twice, not to mention Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Tiger Woods, Sir Nick Faldo and Rory McIlroy. A 62 belonged, or so they thought, to a remote realm guarded by the most exacting gatekeeper.
Now, with this spectacular flourish, Grace, a reliable European Tour talent but never one with claims upon im- mortality, has vaulted beyond them all. He played, as he was not shy of acknowledging, “flawless golf ”, missing a mere two fairways and two greens all day. Grace reached the turn in 29, emulating the dazzling outward half achieved by Ian Baker-Finch en route to his 1991 triumph here at Birkdale, but refused to let his intensity dip.
Having holed a monstrously long birdie putt at the 16th, he picked up another shot at the par-five 17th to lay his platform for history.
Crowds distracted by McIlroy teeing off at the same time were drawn en masse to the amphitheatre of the 18th. A long sigh rustled through the galleries when Grace sent his second shot long, on to the back apron, but from there he did not miss a beat, lagging his putt to what would, in any other circumstances, have been almost tap-in range.
Except the whispers in the stands suggested there were higher stakes at play. “I didn’t know what was going on, I promise you,” he said, laughing. “I had just been in the zone of playing, hole after hole. I wasn’t even aware that 62 would be the lowest ever until Zack came up and said, ‘You’re in the history books.’”
Golf ’s elite has been closing in on the major milestone of 62 for some time. Henrik Stenson’s winning score of 264, 20 under par, at last summer’s Open, was a major championship record, rounded off by a final-round 63.
Just last month, Justin Thomas, a player not exactly a model of raw power, tamed the beastly-long Erin Hills in Wisconsin with the lowest round to par at a US Open, beating even Johnny Miller’s famous closing 63 at Oakmont in 1973. Grace was nobody’s front-rank choice to go one better – he had not so much claimed a 62 in a tour event – but his obliviousness to the scale of the feat helped assuage any nerves.
“My main focus was on trying not to bogey the 18th,” he reflected. “You feel so bad finishing a brilliant day like that, so that was a big point in the right diOpening
rection for me. What a special moment. It’s something I’ll remember forever.”
Rasego, the bag-man who had scrupulously kept quiet about the magnitude of what awaited Grace, politely declined to speak afterwards. “I don’t do interviews,” he said. “Players do interviews.” The dynamic between the two of them is a fascinating one. In an apt reflection of modern-day South Africa, they have wildly contrasting backgrounds – while Grace had a comfortable enough upbringing in Pretoria, inspired by childhood idol Ernie Els, Rasego would run several miles from his Sun City home to the Gary Player Country Club for the chance to caddie – but have forged an unbreakable bond.
“Zack’s part of the family,” Grace said, after savouring his maiden PGA Tour victory at Hilton Head last year. “I’ve told Zack, ‘I feel our relationship is so good that we can talk about anything on the course.’” That message was reinforced when the pair arrived at Birkdale a few days ago, after a recent ragged run of form. “I made it clear that we needed to start communicating again. It has been working ever since.”
In 1942, Ben Hogan had shot a 62 at Chicago’s Ridgemoor Country Club, an event that some golf historians should count as a major as it was the closest equivalent the US possessed in wartime to a major championship. But it was just six months after the Pearl Harbour attack, and the US Open was officially suspended.
Grace’s place in the annals of his sport is secure, although we should add the rider – lest Andy Murray, who upbraided a journalist at Wimbledon for not making a distinction between male and female grand slam tennis semi-finalists – that this is far from uncharted territory for women. A 62 has been accomplished three times in women’s majors, with South Korea’s Kim Hyo-Joo even managing a 61 at the Evian Championship in 2014.
Grace recalled yesterday that he had once had a 60 on a par-72 links, but not with a Claret Jug, or a pedestal above the 29 different players to boast a 63 in majors, on the line.
The fact that Birkdale has only a par of 70, or that overnight rains and the softest of winds combined to make the place ripe for plunder yesterday, should be immaterial. This understated 29-year-old did nothing less than cross the golfing Rubicon. Amazing Grace, indeed.