POTOMAC, Md. -- When Ben Curtis won the 2003 British Open,
he didn't know the title was his until caddie Andy Sutton walked
out of an equipment trailer by the practice range and said, "Ben,
you're the Open champion." His final round over, Curtis had been
warming up for possible playoff.
This time, Curtis can sense the victory coming a day before it
happens.
Curtis was routing the field Sunday at the Booz Allen Classic
when play was halted due to approaching thunderstorms. He'll resume
Monday at 8 a.m. on the 12th hole with a score of 23 under, on pace
for a tournament record and eight shots clear of Padraig
Harrington.
"Hopefully, for me, it's a step in the right direction,"
Curtis said, "where I can dote on it and get a few more wins."
Curtis has led after every round, carding 62, 65 and 67 on the
TPC at Avenel. His worst shot Sunday was his last, when he hit his
4-iron approach at No. 12 in a creek, putting him in position for
what appears will be only his second bogey of the tournament.
Even there, Curtis didn't seem overly concerned about his
plight, saying that "it shouldn't be too difficult of a chip" to
finish the hole and move on.
"I've still got to play my game," Curtis said. "I don't want
to go to sleep tonight, 'Oh, you've got it won,' because I've still
got 6{ holes to go. It's not going to be easy, but I have to go to
bed confident and know that I can do it."
Curtis said he "tossed and turned" a little Saturday night,
knowing that he might finally put to rest those who felt his
victory at Royal St. George's three years ago was a fluke. There
was more time to think after he woke up -- because play was delayed
for six hours by rain.
But he wasn't fazed a bit. He started the day with a five-shot
lead over Brett Quigley, but Quigley landed his opening drive
against a tree and had to play his second shot left-handed. He
bogeyed the hole to put Curtis ahead by six, and the lead grew to
seven when Curtis sank an 8-foot birdie putt at No. 2.
Curtis cruised from there. No one got closer than six shots the
rest of the day. He put dismissed any notion that he might fall
back to the rest of the field when he put his approach with 6
inches for a birdie at the sixth hole. He also made a 25-foot
birdie putt on the difficult No. 9 green.
"I just got in a comfortable zone and was swinging pretty
good," Curtis said.
Curtis is set to surpass the tournament's record winning score
of 21 under, but the low scores this week are skewed somewhat
because the players have been allowed to lift, clean and place
their shots on the fairways during the last three rounds. Storms
and threats of storms prompted the ruling, but it was really only
needed on Sunday, when the heavy rains finally came.
Officials had hoped to beat the bad weather by sending the first
group off at 7 a.m. -- the same tactic had worked on Saturday -- but
incessant downpours made morning play impossible. The start was
postponed nine times before the sun finally made an appearance,
allowing volunteers to squeegee the greens and teeboxes and prepare
the course as best they could.
The first drive at the first hole at 1 p.m. was made from a
front teebox because the back two were waterlogged -- one of them
still had a sizable puddle. Moving the tee forward subtracted some
30 yards from the hole, but the players lost most of that yardage
because their drives weren't bouncing high or rolling far on the
wet fairways.
The rain was another thumb in the eye for a tournament that next
year will be demoted or eliminated. The PGA Tour wants to move the
Booz Allen to the fall in 2007, but it won't be played at all if a
new title sponsor can't be found. The galleries were already thin
Thursday and Friday because the sport's top names took the week off
following the U.S. Open, and the weather delay meant that only the
truly devoted were on hand to witness the start of play Sunday.
Fans who show up Monday will get in free.
"It's sad to see a tournament leave, but that's the way it
goes," said Curtis, who will no doubt be one of Avenel's biggest
fans if he pockets the $900,000 winner's check on Monday. "I wish
I could do something about it, but that's something the tour deals
with."
Divots:
The Monday finish has forced a change in Monday's British
Open qualifying at nearby Congressional Country Club. The
qualifying will start in the afternoon instead of the morning and
will be 18 holes instead of 36. ... Twenty-six players managed to
finish their rounds Sunday, while 46 have to return Monday. One
player, Bernhard Langer, withdrew with a neck injury. ... The
Monday finish will be the first this year on the PGA Tour, but it's
the third in six years at the Booz Allen. The tournament hasn't
been played without a weather delay since 1999. ... The
tournament's record winning score of 21-under 263 was set by Jeff
Sluman and Billy Andrade in 1991 and matched by Adam Scott in 2004.
Sluman won the title in '91 in a playoff. ... The lowest winning
score on the PGA Tour this year is 28-under 260 by Phil Mickelson
at the BellSouth Classic, where he won by 13 strokes.