The Strange days of 1988
Memories from the last champ at The Country Club
One of the lasting images of the last time The Country Club hosted the U. S. Open 34 years ago was Curtis Strange blasting out of the bunker that stretches across the front of the 18th green on Sunday afternoon to within a foot, helping to secure a place in Monday’s 18hole playoff with Nick Faldo.
Strange was steady that Monday, turning in an even-par 71 to win by four shots. It was his third win since the beginning of May and the sixth in the previous 12 months. He was well on his way to leading the PGA Tour money list for the third time in four years — becoming the first to break $1 million in earnings in a single season — but that win in Brookline made him a national champion and changed the perception of Strange.
“The U. S. Open is the biggest event that you or I could win because we’re Americans, it’s our national championship,” Strange told the Herald recently. “The Masters is huge, trust me, and I think in today’s time the Masters might be looked at by some players as more important to them personally, but it’s not from a marketing standpoint, for a recognition standpoint, it’s not even close.”
Up until that point, the casual fan remembered Strange for losing a four-shot lead on the back nine of Augusta National in the 1985 Masters by finding the water when trying to reach both par 5s — Nos. 13 and 15 — in two. That same group often forgets that he opened the tournament with an 80.
There is also a sentimental connection that Strange has for the U. S. Open that the Masters just can’t touch. His father, Tom, was a club pro in Virginia Beach, winning the Virginia State Opens five times and appearing in six U. S. Opens between 1949 and 1968.
He started Curtis on his golf journey, but never got to see the player he would become, dying of cancer in 1969 at 38 years old. Curtis was just 14.
Curtis Strange was a stellar amateur, winning the NCAA individual title as a freshman at Wake Forest in 1974 and helping the Demon Deacons to the team title in 1974 and 1975. He turned pro following his junior year in 1976.
He tried to qualify for the U. S. Open a couple of times, but finally broke through both Local and Final Qualifying in 1977 to earn a spot at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
“It was a big deal in my house for Day 1,” Strange said of getting that initial chance. “Just to be able to play the first time in ’ 77 was a thrill. Then to have a chance two or three times before I won it at The Country Club was emotional because you want to get in there and win for your dad. That’s why The Country Club was so emotional in the press room afterwards.”
Strange had two top-20 finishes in the early 80s before finishing third in 1984 at Winged Foot.
It all came together in Brookline.
“I felt good about my game. I really, really liked The Country Club, as most everybody did,” Strange said. “I realize you still have to go out there and execute and make a few putts. I take that mentality to the first tee.
“I was never good enough to say, ‘Hey, this is my week.’ You get on the first tee and realize you’re playing well and you’re prepared, rested and to just do your job. I got off to a solid start and a good second round and everything kind of progresses from there.”
After opening 70- 67, Strange was tied for third at 5-under 137, two shots behind Scott Simpson, the defending champion.
Strange played the first 15 holes in 4 under on Saturday to move in front. Bogeys at 16 and 17 and dumping his approach to the 18th into the bunker threatened to spoil what had been a great round. He managed to get up and down for the par and finish the day 2-under 69 and take a one-shot lead into Sunday.
“Anytime you can do that at the end of your round it leaves a good taste in your mouth, because you’re going to have to get up and down throughout the day of a round of golf,” he said. “I became accustomed to being in that bunker for four straight days. It was big.”
Strange stumbled early on Sunday, dropping shots at Nos. 2 and
3, but was able to reclaim the lead with birdies at Nos. 7 and 10. Faldo was stuck on 6 under without a mark on his scorecard and D. A. Weibring briefly got to 6 under before fading.
Faldo pulled even at 7 under with a birdie at the par- 4 15th, only to give it back on the 16th with Strange draining a 25-footer to save par and reclaim the lead.
It was short-lived, however, as Strange three-putted No. 17 from about 12 feet. The two went to the 72nd hole tied at 6 under.
Faldo found the right fringe with his second, while Strange hit a 7-iron from the first cut of the left rough and had it splash down in the bunker for the fourth time in as many days.
Strange handled the upslope without a problem and the ball rolled to within a foot of the cup. He then had to sweat out Faldo’s game bid from the fringe that stayed on the high side of the hole.
The deciding playoff
For the third time in as many tries, an 18-hole playoff was needed to decide the U. S. Open at The Country Club.
“It wasn’t a difficult shot, but the environment and the situation made it tough,” Strange said of his penultimate shot of the four days.
He called it “the most important shot I ever hit.”
“I didn’t have a lot of room to work with on Sunday, but I was straight on the upslope. The upslope made it a little bit tricky,” he added. “It would have been a fried egg if it didn’t pop out of its hole. But that’s what you work for your whole life to get in that situation and hopefully execute when you get there.
“It didn’t start the week before or the week before that. It started back in junior golf, amateur golf and college golf, preparing for a situation like that.”
While tournament week typically has full galleries throughout the week, Monday playoffs were almost seen as a letdown with many of the people having returned to work resulting in smaller crowds. It was a bit different in Brookline with Strange estimating there were about 15,000 people out there for the early afternoon tee time.
Strange curled in a 10-foot birdie at the fifth hole to take the lead for the second time, and he would not relinquish it. The lead was still one on the par- 4 13th, and Faldo hit his second from the right rough and it ran to the back of the green leaving him about 50 feet, while Strange put his second to within 25 feet.
After Faldo ran his initial putt about six feet by, Strange drained his birdie bid, the right-to-left putt straightening out for the final few feet before disappearing with Strange nearly down to a knee giving an enthusiastic fist pump. When Faldo missed his comebacker, Strange’s lead was three with just five holes to play.
“You never feel comfortable at all, but now you say to yourself, just keep your head on straight and we might come out all right,” he said.
Faldo pulled one back at the 14th, but also dropped a shot at the 17th. Leading by three, Strange could soak in that walk down the 18th fairway.
“I’ll never forget that, obviously, when you can finally let your guard down and let your emotions run out,” he said. “I’m there playing in front of Bob Rosburg, he was a dear friend. He was the on-course reporter for ABC for all those years. Dave Marr was in the booth, he was a dear friend. My (twin) brother (Allan) came up that morning, my wife (Sarah) was there and all the Boston people, they adopted a Southern boy that day. I will always be indebted to the fans in Boston.”
“They showed Nick all the respect in the world and were rooting for him to hit good shots, but I felt all day long that he was the Englishman and I was the American, so I felt like they had my back.”
The aftermath
Strange won the U.S. Open the following year at Oak Hill, the site of his father’s final U.S. Open appearances, to become the first player to successfully defend the title since Ben Hogan in 1950 and 1951.
It was the last of his 17 PGA Tour victories. He said there was not much pressure leading into Oak Hill because very few people considered a repeat champion since it
had been so long since Hogan had done it. Only Brooks Koepka has done it since.
The bid to join Willie Anderson (1903-1905) with three in a row proved to be more than he could take. Strange was just two shots off the lead entering Sunday at Medinah, where his father made his U.S. Open debut in 1949, but a 74 sent him down to a tie for 21st.
“The last six weeks before Medinah was exhausting. We didn’t think so at the time, but it was exhausting after the fact you collapse,” he said. “You don’t think so, but I lost weight, you don’t eat properly, you’re still working out and running but you’re beating yourself up. I didn’t play so well prior to that Open because of the Open coming up.”
Strange, who works as an analyst for ESPN, is looking forward to the opportunity to get back to the site where he became a major champion. He said it took him a while to return, doing so a couple of times about a dozen years ago.
The course has changed significantly since he won in 1988 with a number of trees having been ripped out, the routing will be different, one hole has been replaced and the course lengthened significantly.
While he didn’t have anyone in mind as being a favorite, he thinks the champion will come from that small group of players who have consistently found their way toward the top of the leaderboard over the past few majors.
“We shot some decent scores at The Country Club, I’m anxious to see what they shoot,” he said.