British Brilliance Proves There Is Life Without Tiger

To say that Harrington was a deserving champion is a vast understatement. He went to bed Wednesday night uncertain he'd be able to even attempt a defense of the title he won when he beat Sergio Garcia in a playoff at Carnoustie last year. He'd jammed his right wrist five days before the tournament during a training drill, and the pain was so severe that on Wednesday he hit two shots to begin a practice round, then walked off the course.

"At least I was better rested for the weekend," he said, half-joking when his exhausted, windswept week of golf was over.

With the British Open in the rearview mirror, let's recap 2008: Trevor Immelman won the Masters less than four months after back surgery; Woods won the U.S. Open nine weeks after knee surgery and a week prior to major knee surgery, and now Harrington has won the British Open playing with a wrist that almost forced him to withdraw.

Maybe Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Sergio Garcia or Adam Scott -- the pretenders who were supposed to step into Woods's void -- can find a way to get hurt in the next 18 days. That might give them a chance at the PGA Championship.

Harrington was six-over-par midway through Friday's round and hoping to make the cut. An eagle at the 17th helped him get back into contention, three shots behind 36 hole leader K.J. Choi.

It also made him believe he could win. After three straight bogeys to finish the front nine Sunday, he made a couple of tough par putts on 10 and 11 and was flawless after that. Norman was tiring and no one except Englishman Ian Poulter was making a serious run from behind. The conditions were too tough for anyone to go low. Harrington's 69 was one of six rounds in the 60s among 83 starters on Sunday -- four 69s, one 68 and one 67 -- after a Saturday when no one broke 70.

By winning, Harrington puts himself into a truly elite class, not only as a back-to-back winner of the British Open, the first from Europe in 102 years, but as the winner of two majors. It's far-fetched to say anyone can win one major, but there have been many less-than-great players who have done so. That list dwindles considerably when discussing those who have won at least two, and shortens even more so when you talk about players who have accomplished the feat in back-to-back years.

What's more, Harrington's back nine -- especially the last two holes, when he lashed a five wood to within four feet to set up an eagle at the 17th and then hit his last iron shot of the tournament to about 10 feet at 18, "best shot there all day," said living legend Tom Watson -- will be remembered for years by anyone who follows golf.

The non-golf fan, those who think there's only a tournament if Woods is playing, doubtlessly wanted to see Norman win. That's understandable. Through all the disappointments -- the blow-up at Augusta; the ignominy of being the only player in history to lose playoffs in all four majors -- Norman has always been gracious in defeat, regardless of pain.

Forget the silly talking head on the telecast who joked that Norman would have to "settle," for his two airplanes, $500 million and tennis champion wife. That misses the point entirely.

Norman had a chance to revolutionize his legacy as a golfer if he had hung on to win. Instead of constantly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory (sort of the anti-Shark if you think about it) and turning a career that might have included 10 major wins into one that included two, he would have been remembered as the player who came from nowhere to be the oldest man -- by four years -- to win a major title. After all, compared to Norman's 53, Jack Nicklaus was a pup when he won the Masters at 46.

But, as has so often been the case, he couldn't quite pull it off. This time there were no miracle shots and no collapses -- the 77 on Sunday was far from an awful round under the conditions -- just the reality of not being quite good enough. As always, Norman handled his defeat with grace and was surprised to learn that his tie for third got him into the Masters next year. That may be small consolation, but it's nice that he gets one more chance to go back to Augusta as a competitor.

A Norman victory would have put golf on the front pages again and all over network television. After all, Paul Azinger said Saturday that Norman was, "Tiger before Tiger was Tiger."

That's wrong: Norman simply wasn't that good. But there was certainly some Arnold Palmer in him -- the charisma, the flair and the inability at times to finish. Palmer was considerably better than Norman -- he won seven majors -- but he lost U.S. Open playoffs three times in five years and never won a PGA Championship.

Harrington was a gutsy champion, clearly, as they say during the awards ceremony, "The champion golf of the year." It was Norman, though, who made this a memorable British Open.

The two of them combined, along with the wind and course and the other chasers, proved definitively that there can be LWT in golf.