Park Takes Euro Grand Prix

The strangest and most wondrous two weeks in the life of David Park ended Sunday when he won the Compaq European Grand Prix in only the second appearance of his life in a full European Tour event.

The young Welshman's performance in beating 27-year-old South African-born Engishman David Carter and Retief Goosen by a single shot with a final round of 72 and total of 14-under-par 274, at such an early stage of his regular tour career would be remarkable enough.

Except, that is, for the fact that, in his first event only the week before, he had taken an infinitely more experienced opponent to a six-hole playoff in North Africa before conceding victory.

Park gained entry into the Moroccan Open on the basis of his ranking on the Challenge Tour, Europe's second-string circuit. The strength of the field had been depleted by the number of Europe's top players who were playing in the U.S. Open at Pinehurst. How grateful he was that they did.

He played brilliant golf in Agadir, and it took the experience of Miguel Angel Martin to push him into second place. The consolation prize -- besides the £38,878 prize that was by far the biggest of his career -- was that, as a top-10 finisher, he was given automatic entry into the Compaq event.

He came to Slaley Hall with the intention, again, of playing his game, not worrying about the rest, and enjoying himself. Just how much he would enjoy himself not even he could have predicted when he set out Thursday on his adventure.

With his victory, Park, who celebrated his 25th birthday on the Friday of the tournament, joined an exclusive club that had only two existing members.

Greg Norman won the second tournament he played on the European Tour when he took the Martini International at Blairgowrie in 1977. Last year, Tiger Woods repeated the feat when he prevailed in the Johnnie Walker Classic at the Blue Canyon club in Phuket, Thailand.

But it was the hidden extras that really made Park's day.

Like, for example, the fact that when his prize-money of £108,000 was added to his Moroccan haul, it left him with enough cash to claim an automatic entry into the Open Championship at Carnoustie next month.

A mini-order of merit that closes at the end of the Standard Life Loch Lomond event gives exemption into the Open for the top five playrs on the list not otherwise qualified, and Park is so far ahead of the fifth man that he cannot be caught.

It came as a huge surprise to him. Only minutes after holing the winning putt, he said that although, by and large, his Challenge Tour days were over, he might play in an event on the tour in Switzerland the week of the Open Championship, for which he had not entered.

When told at his press conference that he was a lock for Carnoustie, he was inclined to disbelieve it. He did not accept the fact until he was told that the Royal and Ancient had been contacted and had confirmed that blank entries had been inserted into the draw to give admission to anybody who had not entered the Championship.

Park was already incredulous, but was even more so when it was further revealed to him that his victory had given him a full card on the European Tour until the end of 2001.

"I knew there was something about that, but I didn't realise how long it was for," he said.

"As for the Open, my aim at the start of this year was to earn my card for the main tour by finishing high in the Challenge Tour order of merit. So, although I was exempt through to final qualifying, I thought if I didn't make it, I wouldn't have time to get back home and catch a flight to the Challenge Tour event that week, so I didn't enter for the Open. "

"So, I'm playing at Carnoustie, am I? I'd better get practising, then. I'll have to hit it a bit straighter up there than I did here."

Not a lot straighter, as a matter of fact. Throughout the first three days of the tournament he had been impressive with not only his unflappable temperament but also his ability to keep the ball out of serious trouble.

He was in much the same sort of form in this final round, played out, in vivid contrast to the first three sun-soaked days, in rain of varying intensity. It never did less than drizzle, and often poured, making the course play long and much more difficult.

The rain almost flooded some greens, especially on the back nine, but palliative drainage laid in by the course's owners prevented play from being suspended, although more than one player had to find alternative dry spots on the putting surfaces.

On one or two occasions, Carter and Park were agonisingly close to the water, but they managed to escape the worst excesses of the weather.

The pair, the last group on the course, was never allowed to forget the presence of Goosen, the in-form South African who posted a clubhouse-leading 13-under-par when they were still three holes from the end.

However, ultimately the destination of the honours depended on two putts from close range on the horribly difficult 18th hole, which claimed dozens of bogeys or worse on the final day.

Carter got to his ball having hit his drive well to the left. He manufactured a shot that bordered on the miraculous -- it olled to within 30 yards of the front of the green. He hit a fine chip to four feet and had that for par.

Park, meanwhile, had split the fairway with his drive, hit his second slightly short then chipped up to perhaps six inches closer than his opponent.

Carter, having to putt first, put a smooth roll on the ball with his broomhandle putter, then watched horrified as it ran round the lip and stayed out. He walked away, shaking his head in despair, knowing that he had given Park a golden opportunity to win.

It was a chance that Park did not spurn.

"It was a tough one uphill,'' he said. "When David was putting, I was slapping myself round the face and telling myself to keep calm, but it wasn't easy."

You would never have known. Park is not a man to let his feelings show, no matter what pressure he is feeling, and he appeared nerveless as he settled over his putt, swung smoothly and drained it.

It was such a short shot, the sort he would hole a hundred times in practice without thinking about it. This time, though, he was putting for a new life. It was quite a moment, the end of a story that was a whole lot stranger than fiction. But then, sport often is.