That A-ha Moment
There was a pop music group out of the 1980’s called A-ha that was not the worst group of that period and they were not the best. They were somewhere in the middle of the pack of the groups that sold records and were played on the radio that may have included the super groups that had a ton of great hits, the pretty good groups that had more than one and less than a lot of hits, but were something less than super, and the fledgling groups that really didn’t score any hits at all.
A-ha had that moment where they had their ONE, really noteworthy hit song called “Take On Me” that, for a brief amount of time, was a definite presence on the charts. Their video for their song was a noteworthy member of the famous MTV rotation of the 80’s era, and for their one moment in the sun, A-ha was “on top of the musical world.”
I’ve come to realize that there is something similar going on in the world of sports to the thing I call “the A-ha moment.” I think the concept of one player or team having their one, shining moment might take place in other sports, but I think the place where you see the “A-ha moment” of a person having that one, great moment in the sun in their life or career where they achieve a brief but major success that temporarily catapults them to the top of the heap and that is in the world of professional golf.
Golf has had its equivalent of the “super groups” that have their multiple “hit records,” which would be translated to the golfers who have the large amounts of tour wins and even majors. Michael Jackson, U2, Sting and Bruce Springsteen were the equivalent of super “groups” or major stars of the music era that A-ha was in. They had major hit songs, major successes and won major awards that dominated their business, while the rest of their peers battled to have their own successes and to create their own identity and to get THEIR share of the pie.
There are some great, equivalent stars in the gold world to rival their counterparts in the music world. Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and a someone like Greg Norman (who used to be that person) or Rory McIlroy are the types of stars that WON golf tournaments, a large share of the winnings and fame that came with being the “best” of their profession. Whenever a Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson (or Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player or Tom Watson from earlier times, to name a few) are or were in the competitive mix of a tournament, THEY would often be the man to beat and would, more often then not, WIN the tournaments, win the money, win the majors, while the rest of the field had to hope to play their absolute best and have a superior effort just to “give THEM a chance” to win out over their more celebrated rivals.
Sometimes a golfer had about as much chance of winning a tournament over Jack Nicklaus or Tiger Woods as a music act had a chance to have the number one song over Michael Jackson or U2. But A-ha had their one hit, their one moment.
And the same thing has happened in golf. In 2003 and 2004, right in between the 2002 and 2005 British Open championships of superstars Ernie Els and Tiger Woods, we saw two American golfers named Ben Curtis and Todd Hamilton have the greatest weeks of their lives and golfing careers happen right in front of the entire sports world when they both won the Claret Jug for being the winner of that year’s British Open. Two players who most people had NEVER heard of before the the year 2003 or 2004 BOTH came through with an A-ha moment and had the right stuff at the exact same time that Tiger Woods and all of the other greats of that era happened to falter.
In 2005, a New Zealand golfer named Michael Campbell rose up and had an A-ha moment and won the U.S. Open over, of all people, Tiger Woods in his prime (but Campbell hasn’t done much of anything since). In 2009, American golfer Lucas Glover had his moment and won that year’s U.S. Open (and he too hasn’t done much since, other than one PGA tour win in 2011). Golf is the type of sport where the greats might win MOST of the championships, but the everyman, journeyman has that one chance of rising up and coming through with that greatest day or sometimes just the greatest moment of their life and to go out and win one of those tournaments or championships themselves.
Sunday, February 14th was a golfing week that presented two opportunities for golfers to have their A-ha moments.
One of them was on the European Tour at a tournament in South Africa. The European Tour’s events down in South Africa usually only have a field of mostly South Africans and SOME of the “lesser” members of the European contingent of players who make the half day journey from the previous tour stop down to South Africa to play in a golf tournament. In this case, there was superstar South African golfer Charl Schwarzel competing against the rest of the players, and leading by one stroke going into the final day. In this case, though, Schwarzel dusted the field with a sparkling 63 and left the rest of the golfers with NO chance of beating him. That’s part of the formula for someone to have that moment. The star player has to have an average or sub par day. Otherwise, the star almost always wins.
The other tournament of this Sunday was the regular PGA tour event, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. In that one, superstar Phil Mickelson was going up against a leaderboard of mostly players that had never won a whole lot of tournaments either. In this year’s Pebble Beach tourney, Phil Mickelson did NOT have his best game and did NOT put away the field. He was only playing basic “even par golf” all day, and seemed to make a bogey every time he birdied something. That left the door open for SOMEONE to rise up and have that “greatest moment of their life.”
In this case, with Pebble Beach playing a bit tougher than normal due to some dry, winded conditions, the tournament came down to Hall of Famer Phil Mickelson, on a course that he has already won at four times, against the one golfer who could maybe put together his A-ha moment. Vaughn Taylor was a golfer that had won twice in his career over ten years earlier, but those were wins at a Reno, NV tournament that always had less than full fledged PGA fields. Taylor had pretty much lost his tour card, but had that “sometimes, we’ll invite you status” from his earlier tour wins. So he was playing Pebble this week as an alternate qualifier, and as things developed, HE was the golfer who was putting together that A-ha moment.
Taylor birdied four straight holes on the back nine and parred the last two holes to post a score of 17 under. Mickelson, at 15 under, needed to put together one of those amazing “Lefty being Lefty” moments to birdie the last two holes to tie him. Mickelson hit his birdie on the 17th hole to trail by one with one to play. He got up to a spot about 45 or so feet away from the hole in two and had announcers talking about him maybe holing out his chip to win this tournament right there. Mickelson put his chip up to five feet away and had that very makeable putt of a chance to tie Taylor, that the greats always seem to capitalize on (Tiger Woods had to make a last shot of regulation putt to tie both Bob May in a PGA and Rocco Mediate in a U.S. Open that he later won).
But, it has usually happened that the everyman golfer’s A-ha moment almost always seemed to coincide with a slip up from the superstar. The everyman NEEDED that moment of less than superstar play from the superstar in order to have his moment. And even though Taylor had birdied those four straight holes earlier, he basically HAD to have Mickelson miss a putt that he would usually make. Taylor got the big break on this Sunday at Pebble. Mickelson missed the five footer on 18. Vaughn Taylor had won the AT&T. Vaughn Taylor had won for the first time in over ten years. On this Sunday at Pebble, Vaughn Taylor was a PGA Tour winner, and for at least this week, he is the toast of the golf world.
The world of golf will likely be dominated by the same, “usual” suspects this season. Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy, Jason Day and Rickie Fowler, the four reigning stars of golf, will probably win a lot of the tournaments this season, including some or most of the majors like they did last season. The next level of “just stars” like Bubba Watson, Zach Johnson, Justin Rose, Dustin Johnson and Henrik Stenson will win their share. The next tier of PGA stars will win their share of the tournaments also, and the next after that, and so on and so on, until it works its way down to the non-winning everyman players.
And somehow, at some time, one or more of these everyman players will have their chances to win a tournament themselves. The planets will have to align a certain way. The star players are gonna have to be ordinary that week. And the everyman player is gonna have to have the best week of his life.
But it CAN happen. A player that seems like he doesn’t have a chance in hell will rise up and have that amazing golf tournament and have that great moment in the sun and win. Like a certain pop music group did in the 1980’s. That A-ha moment.
