Stymied No More

Golf does not do won-lost records well. You go 6-10 in the NFL , and the Lexus dealer wants his car back. You go 6-10 on the PGA Tour , and they're naming sweater lines after you. Over his first eight years on the PGA Tour , Nick Price 's won-lost record was 1-188, but he was a good player—an excellent player, even.

It's just that week after week he was third in this tournament, fourth in that tournament, runner-up to this guy and just edged out on 18 by that guy. Price had mastered the chin-up consolation interview. He had won one, in 1983, and then didn't win again until '91. After a while he thought that if he had to be happy for one more guy who won a tournament, he was going to scream.

Price was always the one standing behind the winner in the morning paper, just a little out of focus. He led the 1982 British Open by an ungodly three shots with six holes to play—and lost to Tom Watson . He started the final day of the '88 British Open ahead by two, only to be beaten by Seve Ballesteros , who shot a historic 65. He blistered Augusta National in '86 for a course-record 63, only to have it forgotten amid Jack Nicklaus 's unforgettable sixth Masters victory. Price was a human ladder rung. When he withdrew from the '91 PGA at Crooked Stick to be with his wife, Sue, who was having the Prices' first child, the alternate who took his place in the draw, an unknown rookie named John Daly , went on to win the thing and become an American legend. Call the National Enquirer , WOMAN GIVES BIRTH TWICE IN ONE WEEK.

By this time Price was 34 years old, and if something didn't happen soon, he was heading for the dreaded Irving G. Thalberg Award for lifetime achievement. But he had been through too much, been packing this dream around with him too long to let it die. Price, who was born in Rhodesia , had interrupted a sterling amateur career to serve two years in the air force during the Rhodesian civil war, getting shot at in helicopters. At his induction examination Price had said, "I have this problem skin, Doc."

"What is it?" said the doc.

"Bullets go through it."

That didn't help. He served.

When he got out of the air force in 1977, he played on the European tour until he left in '82 for America , where he landed with a suitcase and a bag of clubs and not much else. Soon, Price began acquiring things—money, cars, boats—but not satisfaction. "I'd get in position to win," he recalls, "and something would go wrong every time. It would be a wedge shot or a chip or a putt, or I'd drive in the bush somewhere. I kept hitting the wrong shot at the wrong time."

But it's funny how life works. Sometimes you get what you want exactly when you stop trying so hard. In 1987, at the age of 31, Price finally looked up from his bucket of practice balls and saw life. He got married. At 34 he started a family. He grew into fatherhood. In time his grip lightened. He won twice in '91 and then played the tournament of his life to win the '92 PGA in St. Louis . Suddenly, Price was that most dangerous thing in sports—a man who won't be dragged back to losing by six Bigfoot trucks.

And so when he had fashioned a one-shot lead through last Saturday in The Players Championship at the TPC Saw-grass course in Ponte Vedra , Fla. , somebody asked him if he was scared by the all-star leader board lurking behind him—Greg Norman , Mark O'Meara and Bern-hard Langer one shot back; Paul Azinger , two; Payne Stewart and Ken Green , three; Corey Pavin , five—a Murderers' Row in pleats. "No," said Price, in a loud and proprietary voice, "because I'm the winner of the last major championship."