IMAGINE. Mark O'Meara went from a guy who couldn't win a major to one winning two in one year. O’Meara can do Woods
and Kauai a favorO'Meara became a double winner by following up on his Masters victory with the British Open championship. Not bad for a guy who had been 0-for-56 in the four major tournaments.
Suddenly, O'Meara, who won the 1995 Hawaiian Open, is one of golf's major players. What's next for him? Winning the PGA Championship next month?
If O'Meara pulls it off, he will become the first since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win three majors in one year. Not bad for a guy who couldn't win a major.
O'Meara credits his Life-Begins-at-41 success to Tiger Woods, his young neighbor at Isleworth, an Orlando, Fla., suburb.
"Tiger has helped me. He has taken the game to a higher level and he motivates me to work on my game," O'Meara told the media at the British Open.
Maybe now, O'Meara can return the favor, even if Tiger is still keeping his back-up putter. And maybe O'Meara can do Hawaii a big favor as well.
Now that O'Meara captured two of the four majors, the PGA of American will have to find an alternate player for its PGA Grand Slam Nov. 17-18 at the Poipu Bay Resort on Kauai.
Since O'Meara hogged two of them for himself -- you can't blame him after years of deprivation -- that means that O'Meara and Lee Janzen, the U.S. Open champion, can be joined by only one other major winner. That's the winner of the PGA Championship.
That is, if O'Meara or Janzen doesn't win it. If that happens, the PGA of America will have to look for two alternates. The chance of that happening, though, is highly unlikely.
ONLY once in the current format was there a need to select an alternate. That was in 1994, when Nick Price won both the British Open and the PGA Championship.
That was also the year the PGA Grand Slam first moved to the Poipu. The winner was Greg Norman, the event's first and, until this year, only alternate qualifier.
The first thing Norman did after winning was to thank his good buddy Price for giving him the opportunity to play and successfully defend his Grand Slam title.
So imagine if O'Meara could do the same for his buddy, Tiger Woods? That is, if Tiger doesn't win the PGA Championship.
It could well happen.
According to the PGA of America's method of determining the first alternate, Woods right now leads the list with 210.75 points based of his performances in this year's first three majors. He finished third in the British Open, tied for 18th in the U.S. Open and tied for eighth in the Masters.
Jose Maria Olazabal is next with 172 points, while Paul Azinger is third at 137.50. Price is fourth at 128 and Payne Stewart fifth at 127.50, according to Julius Mason, PGA of America's media relations director.
"Second place is worth 100 points, third 97, fourth 85 and on down," Mason said.
SO even if Woods doesn't win the PGA Championship, simply finishing no worse than fourth would make him the first alternate for this year's PGA Grand Slam.
That would make the Poipu Bay Resort people and folks on the Garden Island ecstatic. They well remember the impact Woods made last year.
Ernie Els might have won the most money, but Tiger Woods won the most hearts.
I can just see it now:
Thanks to O'Meara, Woods gets to play in the PGA Grand Slam. He wins it and thanks his good buddy O'Meara, just as Norman thanked Price back in 1994.
Only this time, O'Meara will say, "You're welcome, Tiger. But can I have my putter back?"