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Sports Watch
THE favorite to win the Sony Open - the PGA Tour's first full-field event - starting today at the Waialae Country Club? GOLF WATCH
Look out for ‘other
guy’ at the SonyWell, a good bet would be on someone who won the U.S. Open championship two times.
Ernie Els, right?
Sure, after his stirring duel with Tiger Woods last week in the Mercedes Championships.
Els appears eager to add to his bank roll after earning $313,000 in losing the sudden-death playoff to Woods. But Els isn't the only two-time U.S. Open winner at Waialae this week.
The other two-timer is Lee Janzen, who didn't commit to play until a week ago, and he checked into town without much fanfare.
Janzen's 10-year PGA Tour career has always been that way - quiet but effective. He has always been "the other guy."
Guess who shares the U.S. Open record for the lowest 72-hole score with Jack Nicklaus?
"The other guy."
Janzen tied Nicklaus' 272 total set in 1980 with his first U.S. Open victory in 1993. Both marks were set at Baltusrol.
Even though Janzen won the 1998 U.S. Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco, he was relegated to the "other guy" role because it was a tournament remembered more for the late Payne Stewart losing it.
Stewart led all three rounds before blowing a four-stroke lead over Bob Tway and Tom Lehman with a final-round 74.
JANZEN came back from five strokes to win it, closing with a 68 - the event's best final round in 25 years.
Again, Janzen has to play second fiddle in the record book, because the best U.S. Open comeback is six strokes by Johnny Miller.
Nobody can take Janzen's two U.S. Open victories away from him, especially the one over Stewart at Olympic. But he would not like to be known as the Latter-Day Andy North, who won two U.S. Opens and not much else.
At least Janzen has recorded eight tour victories. But the 1998 U.S. Open is his only victory in four years.
But winning America's national championships has a way of sucking a lot out of you. You don't win the U.S. Open, you survive them.
The victory at Olympic was an emotional one for Janzen, who hadn't won since 1995. He was visibly choked up and teary-eyed at the post-tournament press conference.
ALSO, Stewart for that matter, who lost by one stroke by stumbling over the world's tiniest sand trap.
And, strange as fates would have it, the two times Janzen won the U.S. Open, the runner-up was Stewart.
Janzen beat Stewart by two shots at Baltusrol, and by one stroke at Olympic when the latter stumbled over the world's tiniest sand trap.
Considering that Stewart won his second U.S. Open last June at Pinehurst, if it weren't for Janzen, he might have won the event four times.
So in all the Payne Stewart stories and remembrances, Janzen will always be "the other guy."
"Payne Stewart and I will be linked forever," Janzen said. "He was a great friend. He was a great influence on me before his death and he will be a great influence on me for the rest of my career."
Janzen held off coming here because he took two months off and wasn't sure how quickly his game would come around or even be respectable.
"I wasn't going to make the trip unless I felt good enough about my game," said Janzen, who missed the cut in last year's inaugural Sony Open by one stroke.
Apparently, he feels good about his game.
He's here.
