No.1 single is a record to treasure

It is an inquiry that many in golf crave to answer. One suspects Colin Montgomerie, for example, would be a happier man if a sole victory in one of the four majors had been his lot.

But there are others who are beaten over the head by the jug rather than defined by it. Two champions breezed into Royal St George’s yesterday with the certainty that their name is etched on the most famous trophy in golf.

Ben Curtis, the 36-year-old American, and Louis Oosthuizen, the 28-year-old South African, have found the deepest of satisfaction on these shores by winning the Open.

For the moment, though, their reputations are entirely different. Curtis, who won at Royal St George’s in 2003, is condemned to face endless interrogations about one fateful Sunday and why it was never repeated at a rarefied level.

Oosthuizen, in contrast, has been cosseted by time. Only a year has passed since his victory at St Andrews. He is considered a possible contender while Curtis is treated unfairly as a curiosity.

The American can afford to treat this impertinence with a multi-million dollar smile. He was an unknown, ranked in the high 300s, when he subdued the Kent course, being the only player to remain under par for the 2003 Open.

He returns with $10m in career earnings, two PGA tour victories on his cv, and membership of the US team that won the Ryder Cup in 2008. There is a downside. He is now the world No.194, has not won a tournament since 2006, and has not been in the top 10 this season.

But he is a genuine champion. He has both the substance and the memories to remind of how far he has come and what he did in the greatest golf competition of them all. The American is staying at a more plush abode than the one he inhabited when he played in his first grand slam tournament eight years ago.

“We just kind of upgraded this time,” he said yesterday. “We’re in a house and last time we were in an apartment that was no bigger than than this patio we’re sitting on up here,” he said, referring to a small dais in the media room. After a bout of insistent questioning, Curtis admitted his digs were costing him “five figures”.

“We’ve went from the outhouse to the mansion,” he added.

The surroundings of the course brought back some extraordinary memories, not only of his triumph in 2003 but of his subsequent return with family when he struggled to place his greatest moment in a precise spot of land.

Curtis was playing at Wentworth and his parents and those of his wife, Candace, were in Britain for a visit. A train trip from London down to Kent brought the family group on to the patch of land where Curtis made his name and, ultimately, his fortune.

“We just walked around the grounds,” he said. “We did not walk all the holes because it was really cold and windy. But I remember at the second hole we were down in one of the bunkers just to stay warm, we were so cold. But there were no grandstands and you get a different perspective of it all. We were standing on the tees and my dad was asking: ‘Where did you hit it?’ I was saying: ‘I don’t really know.’ ”

The absence of the grandstands, the lack of a crowd had transformed Royal St George’s into a golf course instead of an arena where only the bravest survive. Other memories endured. The climax to the championship was spectacular. Thomas Bjorn had threatened to run away with the championship, before imploding.

Curtis was preparing for a play-off when his caddie, Andy Sutton, a local recruited that week, raced from the television he was watching to tell his boss that he had won the Open. “I think it was when I got in the car,” Curtis said when asked what stood out from that afternoon of extraordinary drama. He had completed the speeches, addressed the press, had his photograph taken from every angle. “I remember it was almost dark when I left. We didn’t even go back to the place where we were staying. I do not even know what happened to our luggage,” he said.

He arrived at the house where his management was staying. “There were about three people there and that is when it sunk in. When we got back into the car afterwards, Candace was crying.” Her husband asked her what was the matter and she replied: “You won’t believe the zoo that’s going on back home.”

The world of the Curtis family was thus irrevocably changed. A homecoming for a hero in Cleveland has been followed by the sort of career that deserves the description respectable but is labelled as disappointing given that victory eight years ago.

His ambition this year is simply to play well while Oosthuizen, the newest member of the single Open club, has set the bar higher in his aim to defend his title. His professional aspirations are the only grand aspect of a quietly humble champion. Oosthuizen comes from farming stock and his greatest experience as Open champion was to take his trophy to the club, the Albertinia, where he learned how to play.

“That was the most special thing to me, to take to the club where I grew up, a nine-hole course with sand and oil greens. I took it there, showed it to the members, showed it to my friends, my family. It’s a club that has probably got 42, 43 members, all basically field farmers. That was quite a special moment.”

Oosthuizen has arrived in Kent after achieving another ambition. “It was a big dream of mine to go to the harvest work factory in Moline,” he said, enunciating the all-time winner of most unlikely statement from an Open champion until Tiger Woods takes a public vow of chastity.

The South African was allowed to test drive a range of farming equipment. “It was like a big play area for men,” he said.

He will spend this week driving on a more serious play area. “It’s a great honour being Open champion,” he said. “But from here on you are not the Open champion any more . . . well, unless . . . ”

The thought remained unspoken. But stranger things have happened on the sun-baked links of Kent. Ask Ben Curtis.