One-hit wonder Hamilton wins over the fans

IT wasn’t only the manner of his winning the Claret Jug that warmed people to Todd Hamilton on Sunday evening.

His golf coming down the stretch and in the play-off in the British Open Championship at Troon was so sound and solid that you had to believe his claims to feeling “calm the whole day.”

And when the job was done he performed with assurance and grace at the presentation ceremony and later in front of the global media.

He generously applauded Ernie Els, whom he had conquered in the play-off, and delighted the crowd when he paid special attention to the winner of the amateur prize, the 26 year-old Scot Stuart Wilson. It was all a far cry from his experiences a decade ago when he considered quitting the sport. Things were not good, his backers were about to pull the plug but one thing held him back: “I didn’t know much other than golf.”

There are thousands, just like him who will now be encouraged by his heroics of the weekend. They should also take note of the way Killarney’s Danny Sugrue performed over the opening 36 holes at Troon. In the end, he failed to achieve his ambition of making the cut but only by three shots and he was two inside the mark with eight to play on Friday. If Sugrue had enjoyed the benefits of any level of competition in the build-up to the Open, he might well have got through to the weekend.

Unlike the new Open champion, he didn’t have Asia or any other circuit to fall back.

“I’m a true believer that if you can win a tournament, any tournament, then it will help you when you face another challenge,” Hamilton insisted. “I’ve won around the world and I won the Honda Classic earlier this year but never on a world stage like this. To be Open champion is very special. Now I hope that those guys who play the secondary tours, the Nationwide and Hooters in the States, the Canadian Tour, the Challenge Tour over here, will look at me and say, ‘hey, who’s he. If he can do it, so can I’.

“I know I don’t hit the ball as well as a lot of the big time golfers. But my short game is very good. When I’m not hitting it very well, my short game allows me to be competitive. I play what I call ‘ugly’ golf. I hit a lot of punch shots, a lot of big slices or fades off the tee and then rely on my pitching and putting.

“It’s a lot of hard work. And, this is no lie, I felt very calm the whole day. It was the same feeling I had when I won the Honda. I know in these situations you are supposed to be biting your fingernails and I’m usually a nervous kind of guy.”

Hamilton comes from a place called Oquawka in Illinois. It has a population of 1,500 and prior to this, its main claim to fame was supplied by a circus elephant called Norma Jean who was struck by lightning and was buried in the town square. Hamilton, serious but courteous and highly articulate, hopes that he will now be more famous than the elephant!

Not that fame, you quickly realise, is what he is after.

Hamilton shunned the publicity that followed his victory in the Honda.

He looked back instead to the time he learned about himself and his golf game competing and winning eleven times in Asia including four last year.