The 2000 Open at St. Andrews

How's this for an address: Swilcan, The Links, St. Andrews? Businessman Gordon Begg was kind enough to let me watch the finale of the Open from his rooftop along the 18th fairway.

Among many wonderful memories of the week, I was taken, as I always am at moments that portend importance, of that last pregnant pause before IT's over, and the fat lady retires.

The result is all but certain…but not quite yet. Never quite yet. Not in golf. For a second the anxiety is palpable, a wonderful tingle of suspense. Thousands wait expectantly, silent together. Anxious. Excited. Ready to release the tension, we all hold our breath. I've enjoyed several of these moments and treasure them all. The 71st tee at the Masters, with the shadows lengthening, the crush around the tee, everyone standing deathly still. Another was Sunday on the first tee at the Ryder Cup. It's moments like these that still keep me watching, still a fan. What are we waiting for? Something spectacular, either the expected moment of triumph or, perhaps, to bear witness to a train wreck. Our own games provide the same innocent, vicarious torture. There is magic in that agonizing split second: time for the dangers of expectation and a lapse of concentration to seep into one's consciousness, and time for one last look down over the abyss.

Tiger had a putt that was important only to him. It would've given him four rounds in the sixties, a personal best in a major. He could have batted the ball around the green several times. It wouldn't have mattered. He had a twirling putt a St. Andrean described through the binoculars of "Sanders length." Shortly before a streaker had performed, dancing gaily around the stick like a Maypole before being escorted towards the R&A; she was fined 100 pounds Sterling but, according to one of the tabloids, had taken a 120 pound bet. It was cold and I was shivering. Soon we'd toast the champion with good champagne but he still had to hole his putt. One last small step. It would all be over in a second. Listen for it.

Tiger played in against a backdrop of flashbulbs from the large stands down the first fairway. It was harder to pick him out now. He had disappeared then reemerged over the Swilcan Bridge and then slowly made his way back into town. Under the circumstances it seemed a difficult shot but he hit the green, if a tad long. And holed the snaking par putt, as we knew he would.

The crowd and the official response has since been the subject of considerable scrutiny. A marshal was alleged to have thrown a young man into the burn. The R&A has pledged an investigation. We watched the surge from a perfect vantage point and I took many pictures. While the crush was considerable and Tiger and the retinue of marshals, media and officials momentarily disappeared from view after he and Duval hit their tee shots, the crowd, nor the response, seemed particularly angry or manic. Many jumped the burn gleefully or waited to set foot over the ancient bridge. When the line of marshals held, children were called to the front and for several minutes they sat obediently in front, holding back the advancing gallery from the play, now being completed some considerable distance ahead on the green.

Friday morning, I listened at 7:30 as an official gave the marshals last minute instructions. "You are the go-between," they were told. There was also a last word about photographers, the bane of the players' existence. "They're a law unto themselves," the troops were told. "They'll try to get away with anything they can. Take down the number of their armband and tell your controller. Good luck from then me, then." Fortunately, there were no serious problems.

Aside from the silence preceding Tiger's putt, the most enduring image of the 129th Open was watching the crowd enjoy the golf course after play had ended. The Old Course turned in the blink from a major venue to a fairgrounds, filled with prams and happy spectators. Strangers obligingly took each other's pictures. One took the shot and playfully pretended to run off with the camera. Everyone laughed. Dogs darted and jumped. A toddler stumbled around batting a golf ball with a cut down iron pursued by an anxious father wheeling the carriage. Where else but St. Andrews?

Southern Pines, North Carolina