ESPN Golf Online: 1999 U.S. Open: Notebook: Players surrender to Pinehurst

Sunday, Jun. 20
Notebook: Players surrender to Pinehurst

Staff and wire reports
PINEHURST, N.C. -- Pinehurst No. 2 played hard this week. Just how hard?
Ask Chris Perry, who crawled on his hands and knees as he approached the 18th green.
"I thought it would be kind of funny to throw up the surrender flag the last 10 feet and just crawl to the green," said Perry, whose 6-over 76 Sunday left him at 17 over for the four-day event.
"It was pretty comical and a good laugh, for myself even, but I knew that the crowd would like that."
Last year at the Olympic Club, three golfers finished at 20 over or worse. At No. 2, a whopping 16 golfers who made the cut were 20 over or worse, including players such as Tom Watson, Tom Kite and last week's PGA Tour winner Ted Tryba.
Tryba was 19 under in winning the FedEx St. Jude Classic. He ballooned to 28 over this week -- a swing of 47 strokes.
Securing a Ryder Cup spot
Redemption from last year's painful U.S. Open loss wasn't the only reason Payne Stewart wanted to win Sunday. He also wanted to make sure that 1999 Ryder Cup captain Ben Crenshaw isn't left with wiggle room to possibly exclude him from this year's team.
Stewart, who has played on four Ryder Cup teams, neither qualified through the points system nor was selected by the captain to play on the past two U.S. teams. He knows that winning tournaments, especially majors, is the only way to get back to the team competition he loves.
"Today means 300 points, and that gets me to 917, thank you very much," Stewart said with a smug smile. "That will put me on the team.
"I felt I was a legitimate selection for the last two Ryder Cup teams, so the only way I could guarantee going this time was to make sure I won some tournaments. This one should do it for me, and that makes me feel great. I love playing Ryder Cup."
Ready to play Pinehurst
So you want to play the course where some of the world's best players were brought to their knees?
Pinehurst No. 2 will reopen to the general public Tuesday. The cost for a round: $225.
"I will spend the next eight weeks tearing (the venue) down, which may very well be the most depressing thing in my life," championship director Jon Wagner said Sunday.
However, Wagner gave the event a thumbs up and anticipates the USGA will return as soon as possible, probably in eight or nine years.
"If you think of the perfect venue one of the things you need is space, which we've got more space than you could ever use," Wagner said. "Two, you need a platform or a theater to perform that is going to evoke some kind of emotion or passion in people that they want to be here to begin with. That's something that Pinehurst offers that no other place does."
In addition to some dramatic golf staged this week, the tournament was a hit at the concession stands. Pinehurst surpassed the previous record concession sales of $1.5 million at an Open on Saturday with one round left, Wagner said.
"One of the things that we didn't anticipate to this degree, because people had to drive a little further than was typical, instead of eating at their homes everybody was eating here. As a result, there was so much more trash than we ever anticipated," Wagner said.
The previous concession sales record was set by the 1997 Open at Congressional Country Club in Maryland.
Round of the day
While the leaders battled it out down the stretch, the forgotten round of the final day belonged to Dudley Hart.
Hart's 1-under 69 was one of just two sub-par rounds Sunday. Hart's clutch round moved him from a tie for 46th on Saturday to 17th. Vijay Singh also shot a 69.
Hart played the final 16 holes in a remarkable 4-under after starting double-bogey and bogey on the first two holes.
"On this course you can't really get too frustrated," said Hart, who finished at 11-over. "If you lose your composure a little bit you can shoot sky-high."
Turning pro on a positive
Hank Kuehne wished his final tournament as an amateur could have been more of a fairy-tale story. But he was still happy after shooting 78 Sunday and finishing at 26-over 306. It placed him 65th overall.
"I hit the ball a lot better today (than Saturday)," he said. "I'm real happy with that. My problem today was that I three-putted three times. That's something I'm going to have to get better at. These guys out here on tour don't do things like that -- not three times in a round."
No telling what Kuehne could have done had he not had to start each round on the first hole. The long-hitting 23-year-old triple-bogeyed the hole Friday and Saturday and bogeyed it Thursday and Sunday.
"I played the first hole 8-over," he said, rubbing his closely shaved head. "Oh well, at least I got to play it four times."
Kuehne, who will turn pro on Monday, was the only one of six amateurs entered to play on the weekend.