RBC Heritage: Memorable moments

In an era when it’s common to WD from the following week’s event after chalking up a win – especially a win in a major – what Bernhard Langer did in 1985 is all the more remarkable. After winning his first green jacket (he would add another in 1993), Langer not only played the next week at Hilton Head, he won, becoming the only player to follow a Masters title with another win the following week (and adding a tartan jacket to his wardrobe). Langer shot three of his four rounds in the 60s to tie Bobby Wadkins, then won on the first hole of sudden death.

Four victories in a tournament will give you a lot of confidence when you’re going for your fifth. So it was that Davis Love III, a four-time champion at Hilton Head, wasn’t concerned about needing a birdie on the final hole to get into a playoff with Woody Austin. He just KNEW he was going to make his 22-yard chip shot. He even told his caddie, brother Mark Love, that he’d do it. And he did. Four extra holes later, again on the 18th, Love hit the flagstick with a 6-iron and made the short putt to wrap up his fifth Heritage title.

To say that Hubert Green was hot in the spring of 1976 would be an understatement. Green already had won two weeks in a row when he teed it up in the Sea Pines Heritage Classic. And the putts just kept falling. “It’s ridiculous,” he said after taking a one-shot lead at the 36-hole mark. “I’m not this good of a player.” There was more: “I’ve made more birdies the last three weeks than I made in the previous year,” he said. “I’m even beginning to tire of raising my hand to acknowledge the applause when those birdie putts roll in.” Geen went on to a five-shot win, one of 19, including two majors, in a Hall of Fame career.

Boo Weekley had blown a chance to win the Honda Classic when he missed a 3-foot putt on the final hole of regulation, then lost in a playoff. A month later at Harbour Town he was again in position to win, with a three-shot lead, but he was looking shaky. First, he bogeyed the 16th hole, then he hit his tee shot over the green on the par-3 17th. His first chip failed to reach the green, but his second effort found the cup. On 18, he chipped across the green and down a hill, but again, holed his second chip to save par and win by one shot. It was his first PGA Tour win.

In 1988 Jamie Hutton was a 17-year-old from Wisconsin who loved golf and especially Greg Norman. Hutton also was suffering from leukemia. Through a foundation for cancer sufferers, he was granted his wish of meeting Norman at the MCI Heritage Golf Classic. The two hit it off, and Hutton walked inside the ropes with Norman. On Sunday, Norman came from four shots behind to win by one, presenting the trophy to Hutton.

High winds are nothing unusual on the Calibogue Sound, but in 2007 they wreaked absolute havoc with the tournament. Final-round play was halted shortly before 4 p.m. ET as flagsticks were bent over, balls were blown off greens, sand was blown out of bunkers and tree limbs were snapped off. One struck a marshal, who was treated for minor injuries at a local hospital. PGA Tour tournament director Slugger White said wind gusts reached 44 mph. “It got dangerous out there for spectators,” White said. “It was dangerous and unplayable.” When play resumed on Monday, Boo Weekley recorded his first of two consecutive Heritage wins.

The conclusion was about as awkward an ending as a tournament can have. Brian Davis, who had made an 18-foot birdie putt on the final hole of regulation to get into a playoff with Jim Furyk, called a two-stroke penalty on himself on their first playoff hole, making Furyk the winner. Davis, whose approach to No. 18 in the playoff wound up in the hazard to the left of the green, felt his clubhead hit a loose reed during his takeaway, a violation of the rule against moving a loose impediment. When TV replays confirmed his suspicion, he applied the penalty. “It’s obviously a tough loss for him,” Furyk said, “and I respect and admire what he did.”

Matt Kuchar overcame a four-shot deficit in the final round to beat Luke Donald, holing a bunker shot on the 18th hole to do it. Kuchar, who closed with a 64, had three-putted for bogey on the 17th hole to fall into a tie for the lead with Donald, who was several holes behind him. The hole-out gave Kuchar a one-shot lead, which held up for the win, erasing some frustration for Kuchar, who had lost in a playoff two weeks before at the Shell Houston Open.

Stewart Cink fired a final-round 64 to come from nine shots behind and win the Heritage in a playoff with Ted Purdy, but a controversy overshadowed Cink’s heroics. Cink hit his approach to the 16th hole out of a waste area, first moving some loose impediments, which he had been told by an official he could do. Cink went on to beat Purdy on their fifth playoff hole. Purdy, while not blaming Cink, blasted the ruling. “Every player that’s come up to me said I got robbed,” Purdy told Golf World magazine. “… I bet the founders in Scotland, the forefathers, are rolling over in their graves.” Postscript: The following year the area was converted to a bunker.

The 18th fairway at Harbour Town is one of the widest landing areas on the PGA Tour. But it wasn’t wide enough for Steve Jones. Jones, who made it into the tournament as an alternate, needed only to par the last hole to win. But he blocked his drive right, where it landed out of bounds. Re-teeing, Jones made a double bogey. That gave the win – his first on the PGA Tour and his first of five in this event, to Davis Love III.