The Metropolitan
August 2020
Ferris rides Route 66 to stu By Dan O’Neill You couldn’t help but feel a bit for Chris Kovach. Greg Norman would have recognized his pain, Arnold Palmer might have commiserated. After all, Norman couldn’t hold a six-shot lead on the final day of the 1996 Masters. Palmer had a seven-shot advantage with nine holes to play at the 1966 U.S. Open, and finished second. The sometimes maddening truth is, golf will do that to you. One moment you’re on top of the world, the next you’re in the abyss. This fact was not lost on Kovach, who was marvelous in opening an eight-shot lead going into the final round of the Metropolitan Amateur at Meadowbrook Country Club. But on Saturday, Aug. 8, Kovach watched it melt away, his lead and the championship. And when it was over, even in his disappointment, he understood the bottom line: “That’s golf.” You couldn’t help but feel for him … unless you were Chris Ferris. “No,” Ferris said, after tapping in for a championshipclinching par on the final hole of the 54-hole championship. It was the first time Ferris had the lead and, frankly, the
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only time it mattered. “I mean I’ve had my share of leads and had that happen,” Ferris added. “The way I look at it, nobody’s leading until the 54 holes are over. I was just focused on me beating the golf course. I mean, I never thought about (Kovach). That’s golf. It can be a lonely game. You don’t win a lot, so when you do, you have to enjoy it.” You couldn’t blame Ferris. And if you felt empathy for Kovach, you could only marvel at Ferris. Thirty years ago, Hale Irwin came from eight shots back on the final day of the 1990 U.S. Open and won the championship in a playoff - becoming the oldest winner (45) in U.S. Open history. Ferris knew it could be done, but only if he ignored everything else and focused on his own game. As a soccer fan, Ferris has adopted the words of Liverpool coach Jurgen Klopp. “He said. ‘You got to go from doubter to believer at some point,’ ” Ferris said. In the final round at Meadowbrook, he did just that. Kovach didn’t hold his big lead, but it would be wrong to suggest he gave it away. His 4-over-par 76 final round was not his best, but not a score that normally would yield eight
