{"id":362,"date":"2010-07-19T13:29:27","date_gmt":"2010-07-19T20:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davidhbarrett.com\/?p=362"},"modified":"2011-04-01T10:12:25","modified_gmt":"2011-04-01T17:12:25","slug":"the-real-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/davidhbarrett\/golf\/personalities\/362\/the-real-thing","title":{"rendered":"The real thing?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Was Luis Oosthuizen's victory a once-in-a-lifetime moment or a sign of what's to come? <\/p><\/div>\n

Whenever an unexpected player breaks through and wins a major, the questions are always immediately asked, \u201cIs this guy for real or a fluke?\u201d and, \u201cWill he win another major?\u201d<\/p>\n

The answer to the first is almost always, \u201cOh, yes, he\u2019s for real.\u201d And, surprisingly often, the answer to the second is, \u201cHe\u2019ll win more majors.\u201d<\/p>\n

I guess it\u2019s human nature. It would seem churlish to badmouth a guy who has just won a major championship. Perhaps more to the point, it would go against what we\u2019ve just seen with our own eyes. We just watched the man win a major championship. Ergo, he must be very capable of winning majors in the future (we seem to forget that there are only four majors a year and dozens of players who might win them).<\/p>\n

The same discussion occurs when a young hotshot hits the Tour and wins once or twice. Nearly always there is some mention of young phenoms of the past who have flamed out, but nearly always it is stated that this guy is different, he\u2019s the real deal. Yes, I have been guilty of this. I still remember writing that about Robert Gamez when he won twice as a rookie in 1990. Oh, by the way, he didn\u2019t win again for 15 years.<\/p>\n

I am writing this, of course, in the wake of Graeme McDowell winning the U.S. Open and Louis Oosthuizen the British Open. Neither of them came completely out of nowhere (though Oosthuizen was a 200-to-1 shot), so I will go along with saying that they aren\u2019t flukes. (Even if I thought they were, I probably wouldn\u2019t say it\u2014I\u2019m no churl.)<\/p>\n

But the common view seems to be that this was their breakthrough, and that they will henceforth be forces to reckon with in the majors and probably collect more titles. I\u2019ll have to see more before I go along with that.<\/p>\n

The arguments for Oosthuizen are that he\u2019s got a great swing, that he blew away the field at St. Andrews, and that he proved in the final round that he can handle pressure.<\/p>\n

He certainly does have a great swing. ESPN\u2019s commentators were raving about it, especially Tom Watson. (At one point, another of the commentators told Watson that Oosthuizen\u2019s swing looks a lot like his, and Watson said, emphatically, \u201cThat\u2019s better than mine!\u201d)<\/p>\n

As for blowing away the field, Oosthuizen\u2019s favorable draw in tee times in the first two rounds probably had something to do with that. I think it\u2019s safe to say he would have won anyway, but if the afternoon starters hadn\u2019t been blown away by the wind on Friday chances are that a couple of them would have finished less than seven strokes behind.<\/p>\n

Regarding pressure, I agree that it\u2019s not easy sleeping on and playing with a 54-hole lead, especially when you\u2019re a young player trying to prove yourself. You only have to go back four weeks to find an example of how tough it can be (that\u2019s a Dustin Johnson reference).<\/p>\n

But I think the concept of some players handling pressure better than others is vastly overrated. As far as I\u2019m concerned, there is one pressure player on the PGA Tour\u2014Tiger Woods. For everyone else, you can point to a fair number of times they\u2019ve come through in the clutch, a fair number of times they\u2019ve blown it, and a fair number of times they\u2019ve turned in a middling performance.<\/p>\n

In assessing Oosthuizen\u2019s future, you have to consider that he had missed the cut in six of the seven majors he had played in, and finished dead last in the one where he made it all 72 holes. He had missed the cut or withdrawn in five of his previous seven tournaments coming into the British Open. And he owned only one victory on the European Tour.<\/p>\n

Could it be that he just caught lightning in a bottle? That his game was exceptionally well suited to St. Andrews? That he will revert to his previous form now that the magical week is over?<\/p>\n

Well, no, I don\u2019t think he will be missing cuts in most of his majors from here on in. But I\u2019m definitely in a wait-and-see mode.<\/p>\n

OK, here\u2019s where I get part of the way back on the bandwagon. I really was impressed with Oosthuizen\u2019s demeanor. He seemed to be able to treat the final round of the British Open as just another round. And he seemed grounded enough that he will be able to gain confidence without letting this win go to his head.<\/p>\n

And, of course, there is that great swing, one that looks like it should hold up for a long time. There is his ability to hit the ball both long and straight off the tee. The European Tour stats this year show him 29th in distance (293 yards) and 44th in accuracy (66 percent of the fairways), a very good combination. A look at prior years shows that he\u2019s always been long, but that his accuracy left a lot to be desired until 2009, when he started hitting more fairways while giving up a few yards in distance. That shows that he may be coming into his own now at the age of 27.<\/p>\n

McDowell, three years older, came into the U.S. Open with a better pedigree\u2014some European Tour wins and a bunch of top-25 finishes in majors. But I\u2019ve got to say that in a way I like Oosthuizen\u2019s chances better, because his game looks like it has more upside.<\/p>\n

In winning the U.S. Open, McDowell impressed me as a gritty player with a good game. He almost certainly will win some more events on the European Tour and on the PGA Tour if he elects to play in the U.S., and should be a regular on Ryder Cup teams. I see him staying in the top 30 or 40 in the world for quite a while. But did he look like a guy who\u2019s going to be pounding on the door at a bunch of majors? I don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n

If he can drive the ball anything close to the way he did at St. Andrews, Oosthuizen has a chance to be a top-10 player. That\u2019s a big if, though, and that\u2019s why I\u2019m reserving judgment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whenever an unexpected player breaks through and wins a major, the questions are always immediately asked, \u201cIs this guy for… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2980,6279,9,3912,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-british-open-majors","category-golf","category-major-championships","category-personalities"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/davidhbarrett\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2010\/07\/Oosthuizen.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/davidhbarrett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/davidhbarrett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/davidhbarrett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/davidhbarrett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/davidhbarrett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/davidhbarrett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":439,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/davidhbarrett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362\/revisions\/439"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/davidhbarrett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/davidhbarrett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/davidhbarrett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/davidhbarrett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}