PINEHURST, North Carolina, 16 June 2005 — Chris DiMarco is finding it hard to put his US Masters playoff loss to Tiger Woods behind him.
The United States Golf Association (USGA), which knows a headline grabbing pairing when it sees one, has grouped DiMarco with Woods for the first two rounds of the US Open which begins today.
Playing with Woods will hardly be a happy trip down memory lane for DiMarco, who has become golf’s “nearly man” for a remarkable string of close calls.
“It’s pretty flattering because everybody knows that the USGA doesn’t pick your names out of a hat, they put the pairings together,” said DiMarco, trying to put a positive spin on his assignment. “From what I understood, they put people who can play with Tiger in situations like that, so that’s pretty flattering that they know that I can do that.”
Had it not been for two strokes and a slice of good fortune, it could well have been DiMarco holding court at Pinehurst this week as he closed in on golf’s elusive grand slam.
DiMarco’s “almost slam” began last August with a three-hole playoff loss to Vijay Singh at the US PGA Championship and continued with his overtime loss to Woods at Augusta.
Despite being without a win since the 2002 Phoenix Open, DiMarco’s remarkable consistency has lifted him to number seven in the world. With four top-10 finishes in the last five majors, DiMarco seems to do it all on the golf course’s except win.
The likeable 36-year-old has just three PGA Tour titles on his resume but ranks near the top in US earnings this season with $2.24 million in prize money, helped along by his runner-up placings at the Masters and the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship.
A gritty and fierce competitor, DiMarco has also been one of the most reliable and resilient performers on recent US Ryder Cup and President Cup teams.
