Champion returns from obscurity

George Kimball America At LargeWhen Nick Faldo goes off the first tee at Royal Troon at 2:42 this afternoon, he will be accompanied by a pair of utterly anonymous playing partners. One, Jean Francois Remesy, is a Frenchman currently ranked 102nd among the world's golfers. The other is Ben Curtis, the defending champion.

In the space of less than an hour at Troon yesterday we heard Curtis described as (a) "the Accidental Champion", (b) "the most obscure winner in the history of the Open Championship", and (c) "the worst player ever to win a major". As he prepared to defend the title he won at Sandwich last year, the 27-year-old holder of the claret jug didn't sound prepared to dispute any of it.

"I was extremely lucky to get my name on that trophy," he admitted.

Winning a major championship is supposed to be a career-altering event, but, apart from allowing him to keep his tour card, it isn't at all clear that Curtis' life has been changed in the least.

He had come to Sandwich a refugee from the Hooters Tour ranked 396th in the world, feasted on his moment of fame with appearances on the US late-night television circuit, and seemingly lapsed straight back into his previous existence.

Curtis missed the cut in his last two tournaments - the Scottish Open at Loch Lomond last weekend and the Western in Illinois the week before. (Those were the sixth and seventh missed cuts of 2004, but think about this: had he missed the cut in the 2003 Western Open, Curtis never would have gotten to Royal St George's at all.) He has spent this year shuttling back and forth between the US and Europe, but an eighth-place tie at the Memorial last month represents, apart from his British Open win, his only top-10 finish on either side of the Atlantic. It is not an exaggeration, in other words, to suggest that if one were to throw out Curtis' win at Sandwich, the defending Open champion would not be ranked among the top 300 golfers in the world.

"When I was here last year I was just hoping to retain my card," Curtis conceded yesterday. "I wasn't really thinking about winning, but for four days I played some special golf. I hope this year will be the same."

In his rookie season on the PGA Tour, Curtis managed a tie for 13th in the Western Open that somehow gained him entry to the British under the "top eight not otherwise exempt" qualification.

Once there, he surprised himself by first making the cut and then by finding himself within striking distance on Sunday. He managed four birdies on his first nine, but basically bogeyed his way home as his better-known competitors disintegrated all around him. Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh frittered away multiple opportunities, and the only player with a genuine chance to best Curtis, Thomas Bjorn, staged a meltdown in the sand, taking three shots to escape a bunker on the 16th hole. (This, after the Dane earlier incurred a two-shot penalty for grounding his club in a hazard when he registered his disgust with an earlier shot by slamming the sand with his wedge.)

Still, even when Curtis drained an 11-foot putt on the finishing hole, whatever pressure existed came largely from the fact that he believed that by making it he just might squeeze into a play-off. He was hitting balls on the range and seemed completely startled when R&A officials approached and then dragged him by the ear over to the 18th green to present him with the claret jug.

Yet here he was yesterday saying that "this is one of the four hardest tournaments to win in the world, and now that I've done that I feel like I can do it again. I know if I hit the ball halfway decent and keep the ball in play, and if my putter stays hot, I'll have a chance," added Curtis, although, of course, 155 other fellows could reasonably say the same.

After missing the cut at Loch Lomond, Curtis drove to Troon on Saturday morning, but instead of playing golf he checked into the hotel with his wife, Candace, and spent the day relaxing. He played his first 18-hole practice round on Sunday. Once again he will be accompanied by Andrew Sutton, the caddie with whom he was united, almost by lot, at Sandwich last year.

"We have a good relationship," said Curtis. "He's had a lot of experience with links golf over here in Europe. He's very focused on what you're doing, but he's a lot of fun. No matter how good or bad you're playing, you're always laughing.

"I'm just trying to treat this like every other week and hopefully go out and play well," Curtis said yesterday. "Hopefully I'm going to go out there and not really worry about what's at stake, just go out and play golf and have some fun.

"Look," said Curtis, "don't get me wrong. I'd love to win this week. I'd love to win next week. I'd love to win whenever I play. But I look at it as a learning curve. If I don't win (again) until my fifth or sixth year, that's just as fine. I think you learn every time you go out there. Hopefully one day I'll become as consistent as Tiger and Vijay and Ernie, but that's a long way down the road. Hopefully I'll be there in a few years."