Hamilton shows you can't always tell pedigree from a resume

TROON, Scotland (AP) — Ernie Els knew it long before Todd Hamilton showed everyone else by winning the British Open.

You can't always tell a player's pedigree by reading his resume.

”Everybody looks at America or Europe but there's a big world out there and there's a lot of quality players,” Els said. ”Wherever you win a tournament in the world you've got to play some quality golf. I knew he was going to be tough.”

Tough enough, it turns out, to get his name on the claret jug.

Hamilton had the biggest names in golf behind him and every chance to crack Sunday at Royal Troon. Ernie Els and Phil Mickelson were trading leads with him, and Tiger Woods was up ahead trying to get something going.

But he hadn't toiled for 12 years in Asia — winning 11 times on the Japanese tour — without figuring something out. He hadn't made it through PGA Tour qualifying school on his eighth try without learning how to go about it.

And he knew how to draw on those experiences at a moment some players would have trouble drawing the club back.

”To be honest with you, and this is no lie, I felt very calm the whole day,” Hamilton said. ”Sometimes I get in situations where you should be biting all your fingernails off. But sometimes I get out there and it almost seems fun.”

It didn't look like much fun when Hamilton stood on the 18th tee in regulation, then promptly hit his drive way right and his next shot way left. He managed to make bogey, which would have been good enough only for second place had Els made the 12-footer for birdie he had left.

When Els didn't, the four-hole Open playoff was on. Surely, Hamilton would now crack in a head-to-head matchup with the world's No. 2 player.

Wrong.

Hamilton was the one who made all pars, while Els bogeyed the third playoff hole to fall a shot back. And Hamilton was the one who pulled out a utility club from 40 yards away on the final playoff hole to hit a shot that skidded within 2 feet of the hole.

”I'd never been in a position like that, at least in a tournament as grand as this, and to be out there for the first time in a position like that and feel very calm was kind of an oddity,” said Hamilton, the Honda Classic winner in March. ”But, as I said, I felt very calm the whole day, believe it or not.”

Els believed it.

He played with Hamilton in the final group and saw it up close. Hamilton had a hiccup on the final hole of regulation, but he wasn't going to give away the Open in the playoff.

”He obviously had a game plan. I'm sure that's the way he played the whole tournament and he stuck with his guns,” Els said. ”It worked out this time for him. He played wonderfully.”

The game plan for Hamilton was to hit irons or utility clubs off the tee whenever trouble lurked, and use his short game to make up for the rest of it.

The short game had been honed in years of playing in Japan, when Hamilton would rather stay at the course until dark rather than go sit in a hotel room by himself watching Japanese TV.

The touch was never needed more than on the final playoff hole, when Hamilton was well in front of the 18th green and in dire need of a par. He and Els had finished regulation tied at 10 under, and now Hamilton had a one-shot lead at the final hole.

He chipped up close and watched as Els missed an 18-footer for birdie that would have forced another hole. Then Hamilton tapped in his 2-footer and the Open was his.

Only then did the enormity of the moment start to sink in.

Turning his back on the hole, he let out a whoop, raised both arms in the air and hugged his caddie.

”I think the fans got treated to some wonderful golf, if they stuck it out to the very end,” Hamilton said.

Els did stick it out to the end, and now he walked off the final green looking exhausted. He could only think what might have been if he had made the 12-footer he left short on the final hole of regulation for the win.

”I'm going to think about that putt for quite a while,” Els said.

Now, another major championship had somehow slipped away, like the Masters did when Mickelson sunk a birdie putt on the last hole and like the U.S. Open did when he imploded for an 80 in the final round.

”I didn't want to let this one go,” Els said. ”Coming so close, obviously it's a disappointment. But to get in the playoff from where I was, you've got to take the positive out of it.”

Mickelson also was looking for something positive. He had the lead outright on the back nine, then made his first bogey in 49 holes on the 13th hole when he missed a 4-footer.

Mickelson parred out, but it wasn't enough. When his long birdie putt on the final hole came up short, so had his chances in his second straight major since his breakthrough win at the Masters.

”To miss out by a shot certainly was disappointing,” Mickelson said.

Tiger Woods missed out by even more. Now winless in his last nine majors, he made two early birdies but finished with a 72 and was seven shots back.