By the time Mike Weir reached the 16th hole at Glen Abbey on Sunday, I had just cracked my first Heineken. As it turned out, I should have started drinking much earlier.
Watching Weir attempt to close the door on Vijay at the 2004 Canadian Open was excruciating for this Canadian to watch, and I can imagine, one-hundred times more excrutiating to experience for Mike to experience first hand. I can't begin to think about how it must have felt to have an entire gallery pulling for you, begging you to do what no man had done in 50 years, to be the first Canadian within that time to win the Canadian Open.
Watching Weir win The Masters in 2003 was difficult, but not as difficult as this. At the 2003 Masters, Weir looked comfortable with what he was doing on the back nine during the final round at Augusta National. This time however, it looked like Mike was more than aware of what loomed ahead, and if he could just get to the house quickly enough, everything might be ok. He appeared to be too aware of the situation, too eager to have his picture taken with the Mounties, holding the trophy in one hand and the presumptiously planted Canadian flag from the 18th hole in the other.
Mike Weir blasts from a greenside bunker on during regulation play on the 18th hole of the final round of the 2004 Canadian Open.
At Glenn Abbey, his routine looked ever so marginally rushed - as witnessed by his bunker shot on 18, where an up and down for birdie would win him the championship in regulation play. But who the heck am I to criticize when I have trouble closing out a half way decent round with my friends? After all, I'm nervous over putts that will put me at even par for nine holes. That being said, this guy has more talent in his left pinky than myself and all of my golf partners combined.
What Weir was able to do was to reveal to a massive national television audience in Canada, the very essence of golf.
Each of us who have every played the game with any amount of seriousness, regardless of ability, is forced to battle the inner demon that gnaws away at our ability to achieve what we think is possible. For the better part of a decade, the Canadian open seemed to have Weir psyched out. Missed cuts, complaints about Glenn Abbey, and the expectations that both he and the country foisted upon him all contributed to his lack of success at our national open. For Weir, those are restrictions no longer. At minimum, he now knows what it's like to contend his own national open, and should only be the better for it down the line.
Witness how Weir handled his disappointment at the 1999 PGA Championship. Starting the day tied for the lead with, and paired with Tiger Woods in the final group on the final day, Weir ballooned to an 80. Many Canadians assumed that the experience would be so crushing that we may never hear from Weir again.
I think we might want a mulligan on that assumption.
