By Thomas Boswell
Washington Post Columnist
Thursday, May 27, 1999; Page H1

First at Congressional Country Club, then Tournament Players Club at Avenel, the Kemper Open has showcased the game's biggest names and introduced fast-rising stars to the Washington area.

The previous 19 Kempers have included such winners as Craig Stadler, Fred Couples, Greg Norman, Tom Kite, Mark Brooks, Lee Janzen and Justin Leonard, who have gone on to win nine major championships among them.

And along the way, we've witnessed sudden-death playoffs, heroic comebacks, late-round collapses and some of the game's liveliest personalities. It's been great golf.

When the Kemper Open came to the Washington area in 1980, it was accompanied by modest promises. Nobody claimed we were getting an event such as the U.S. Open that would make the hair on the back of our necks stand up. Nobody said that we'd get the deepest fields or the biggest stars.

No one guaranteed us that we'd see Jack Nicklaus shoot 30 for nine holes or watch Greg Norman hit a 400-yard drive, although both those things happened. The Kemper Open was supposed to be about modest, just-another-week-on-the-PGA-Tour pleasures. No one sold us hype about heroics on the 18th hole. Yet Lee Janzen birdied that tough finishing hole at TPC at Avenel five times in '95-the final time to win a playoff.

The Kemper arrived without any assurance that we'd ever see anything as zany as a five-way sudden-death playoff in which one of the players-retrieved from the 19th hole-was visibly drunk. Nor were we told to expect a playoff that turned into a six-hole marathon. Oh, don't forget the year a 60-foot putt by Bill Glasson won the tournament on the last hole.

The prospect of controversy or soap opera was never a hook for the Kemper to hang its hat on, although, through the years, the tantrums and quick exits of Tom Weiskopf, Greg Norman and John Daly seemed to come as dependably as mid-term elections. Would Weiskopf's temper or Daly's drinking problem reemerge to haunt them again?

Would Norman find some new way to be The Peck's Bad Boy That Washington Loves. Would the Great White Shark insult the course? Be a last-minute no show? Chew out the nice volunteer who makes a little joke when introducing him on the first tee? Give the gallery the Albert Belle gesture? On the other hand, how could we resist the two-time champ? One year, a beautiful fan said to him, "Greg, I just wanted to find out if you were as handsome up close as everybody said."

"Well, dear," said Norman, rakishly, "am I?"

We were never told that we would see the golf equivalent of competitive tragedy-Mark Wiebe missing a pair of two-foot putts on the last two holes to lose by one humiliating shot. We also weren't told that we'd see the golf equivalent of rebirth-such as the year that Glasson revived his entire career after finding an almost miraculous cure for a back injury that threatened to leave him not just an ex-golfer but permanently disabled.

Capital Gain
The entire premise for the Kemper moving from Charlotte to Washington was that this town was a rabid, sophisticated golf area where tens of thousands of people loved the game so much that they'd actually be able to enjoy a regular PGA Tour stop. And accept it-gladly-for exactly what it was.

Amazingly, that's just what happened. Washington accepted the Kemper on its own terms and often has been rewarded with more than could be reasonably expected. Naturally, some years the tournament was a boring runaway.

Actually, there were several such tournaments in the first seven years when the Kemper was held at Congressional Country Club. Win by five? Win by six? Win by seven? In those early years, we endured it, as well as tornadoes, thunderstorms, flash floods, axle-deep mud in parking lots and hours-long traffic jams on River Road.

One water-logged day, tournament chairman Ben Brundred even issued this public advisory: "Please do not come to the Kemper Open."

But we've kept coming. Whatever else Washington may be in sports, it's a first-rate golf town. Through the years, the Kemper Open's champions-at least half of them relatively anonymous when they arrived at Avenel-have been welcomed enthusiastically, not resentfully. Sometimes, those winners remained rather inconspicuous in the game, such as Tom Byrum, Grant Waite and Billy Andrade.

But just as often, and perhaps more frequently, the players who first came to prominence here have gone on to distinguished, and even legitimately great, careers. Their ranks include Norman, Janzen, Fred Couples, Craig Stadler and Justin Leonard.

Last year's winner, Stuart Appleby, may join that group someday, too. Even Gil Morgan, after seven winless tour years, used his victory here as a springboard to totally unexpected stardom on the Senior PGA Tour.

A Flood of Memories
As Washington plays host to its 20th Kemper this week, it's fun to remember all the theatrics and drama, comedy and calamity, the goofball episodes and vivid cast of characters that have made the event such a dependably enjoyable yearly staple, one that has seen attendance grow almost every year and now approaches 200,000 spectators for the week.

Remember the year that Couples' first wife celebrated his winning putt by racing through a sand trap in her little blue dress and white cowboy hat? Upon arrival at her beloved, she screamed, "Way to go, babycakes! I love ya!" and flung both arms and, more memorably, both legs, around him.

You never know what you'll see at the Kemper. One year, the tournament ended-while many fans scratched their heads in confusion-when Larry Mize simply put his ball in his pocket, quit after hitting two balls into the water and took an "X" to end his playoff with Greg Norman. As irony would have it, 10 months later, the two met in a much more famous playoff. That time, Mize didn't put the ball in his pocket, but pitched it into the hole from 140 feet away-for a green jacket at The Masters.

As befits an event with aspirations of adequacy, the caddies have sometimes seemed to upstage their players. After Morris Hatalsky won in '88, his caddie flung his golf ball an amazing 175 yards back up the 18th fairway.

"That guy's got some arm for a caddie," said a fan. That's not just a caddie, he was told. That's Tim Foli, the old Pirates shortstop! And Hatalsky's friend since boyhood.

When the humble Byrum won a year later, he credited the good luck of being able to borrow a famously amusing caddie-Irishman Dave McNeilly-from Nick Price, who wasn't playing that week. "The only time he didn't have me laughing and relaxed was the 30 seconds when I had to hit each shot."

Some events transcend the fan base of their particular sport. Everybody wants to go to the Kentucky Derby or The Masters. Other events seem to be meant for true fans. For example, if you don't play golf or watch it on TV, it's hard to imagine why you would come to the Kemper Open. Though it's certainly a walk in the park, it's not as nice as a walk in a real park. On the other hand, if you do play golf or love it, it's equally hard to imagine that you would not enjoy the Kemper Open.

Here's the distinction. Tiger Woods, David Duval and Greg Norman-perhaps the three most famous players in the world-are not coming to the '99 Kemper.

However, Mark O'Meara, Janzen and Vijay Singh, who won all four of last year's majors, will be here. If this bothers you, you may be a sports fan, but not a golf fan. So the Kemper might disappoint you. If O'Meara, Janzen and Singh, plus Daly, Leonard, Appleby, Jim Furyk, Tom Kite, Fred Funk, David Frost and a dozen other notable players, seem like more than you could reasonably digest in a few days, then you're a Kemper person.

Eye, Eye Sir
The pleasure and piquancy of the Kemper tends to be in the details. For example, Funk, the former University of Maryland golf coach and an 11-year tour veteran, has played here for years, but tended to do poorly. Last year, on a whim, he went to an eye doctor two days before the Kemper, found out that his eyes were so bad that he was legally blind without his glasses and-on the spot-had laser surgery.

On the range at Avenel, he tried out his new eyes. "I almost whiffed the first 10 balls," said Funk. The ground seemed further away. The only compensation was that "for the first time in my life I felt tall."

In his first round after surgery, he shot 64, then, for the first time in his long career, won more than $1 million in one season. The eyes have it. Perhaps the most memorable single scene in any Kemper, however, came the year that 1,000 eyes-attached to 500 people-could not find one golf ball-the ball that belonged to Bobby Wadkins in 1994.

The popular Wadkins hadn't won a tournament in his entire 19-season career-the longest drought in tour history. His flashy brother Lanny, of course, had won tons of times. Leading the Kemper on the easy par-5 sixth hole on Sunday, Bobby hit a ball onto an embankment above the green. Lots of balls land there. It's rough. But you find it and chip it on. Then two-putt for par or even make a birdie. It's a cinch.

Except none of us could find the ball.

"Maxfli? . . . Staff 1? . . . Pinnacle 3? . . . Titleist 3?" came the hopeful yells from fans as they found balls while the five-minute lost-ball clock ticked.

But Wadkins's Titleist 7 was never found. Unhinged, he made a horrid eight-and lost the Kemper by three shots. He still plays-two regular tour events and seven Nike Tour events this year. Still hasn't won.

Of all the Kemper memories, however, the one that stands out most starkly for me after all these years is not a golf shot at all. Perhaps a merely brilliant shot wouldn't be quite subtle enough to be representative of the Kemper Open, an event in which it sometimes seems that half of the knowledgeable gallery wish they could clamber under the ropes and hit the next shot for the leader.

Six years ago, Grant Waite was leading the Kemper with Tom Kite one shot behind. At the fourth hole on Saturday, Waite got relief from ground under repair. However, when taking his stance, his heel was still touching the white circle marking the spot-a potential two-shot penalty.

"We don't need any penalties, that's for sure. At least I don't," said Kite-then the top money winner in tour history-to Waite who was, then and now, a marginal journeyman.

Saved from the two-shot gaffe by Kite's unnecessary but gallant sportsmanship, Waite kept his poise. For the rest of the Kemper, Waite and Kite battled head-to-head with the memory of Kite's good deed hanging over them. On the final holes, Kite played well, putting intense pressure on Waite. Yet Kite kept looking at his foe with a bemused half-smile as though delighted that he had not, by some cheap stab with the rulebook, kept such a diligent craftsman from having his finest hour of honest work. In the end, Waite won. By one shot, of course.

Kite has won the U.S. Open, more than $10 million and a spot in the Hall of Fame. Waite hasn't won a tournament since and perhaps never will. The Kemper Open is where they meet-some of the greats and many of the rest. They give us their best. And, for its 20th year in Washington, it is almost always better than advertised and every bit as good as should be expected.