Mark O Meara

The trees are bigger. The roads are wider. The Irvine Coast Country Club is now the Newport Beach Country Club, and the golf balls don't automatically pop out of the holes after putts. Still, in a lot of ways, Mark O'Meara was home. When he begins play in the Toshiba Classic today, his third event since turning 50 and joining the Champions Tour, he'll be walking over familiar turf at the Newport Beach Country Club. He learned the game and played high school golf here.

With the possible exception of the financial consultant, Mark O'Meara probably has had more influence on Tiger Woods' professional golf career than anyone else, which isn't bad, given that Woods is the gold standard of the game. At the same time, it's more than just a matter of following the dollar signs. It was O'Meara who guided Woods to his teachers, Butch Harmon and then Hank Haney. It was O'Meara who moved to Isleworth in Florida, where Woods also lives.

Mark O'Meara, a 16-time winner on the PGA Tour and winner of the 1998 Masters and British Open championships, has begun dabbling in golf course design. Two courses bearing his name already are open -- one in Canada and the other in Ireland. O'Meara's first domestic offering, the TPC at Valencia, opened to the public on Thursday. The TPC at Valencia is a semi-private course with green fees for the general public ranging from $100 to $130 and limited membership opportunities.

How tough is it to win the Masters with birdies on the last two holes? Nothing that couldn't be handled by Mark O'Meara, the 41-year-old Long Beach native who until Sunday at Augusta National was best known as Tiger Woods' easy-going golfing buddy back home in Florida. But as the shadows from the stately pine trees grew long across the 18th green, O'Meara won the first major title of his 19-year career by winning the Masters like no one else has done in the last 38 years.

If you took the Masters field against Tiger Woods, congratulations. The field won. Mark O'Meara, best known until Sunday as Woods' best friend, wears the traditional green jacket today, but it could have been anybody. If O'Meara hadn't steered a 20-foot birdie putt into the hole on the 72nd hole, Fred Couples or David Duval might have won. If they had staggered once or twice more on the second nine, it might have been Jim Furyk or Paul Azinger.

That Mark O'Meara has had quite a career, all right, most of it in the last three months. The round-faced 41-year-old who won exactly zero of the first 56 majors he played, now has won two of his last three. On a muggy Sunday at Royal Birkdale, with the sky the color of graphite and supercharged clouds of pressure hanging low and heavy, O'Meara added the British Open to his sudden new collection of major titles.

They used to call it Crosby weather when this tournament carried Bing Crosby's name instead of the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro Am--and that's such a mouthful even Bing would have had a hard time singing it. It's probably comforting to know that while the name is different, one thing hasn't changed. That would be the weather. You know . . . rain that comes down sideways, flagstick-bending wind, near-freezing temperature. All right, so it was sunny and breezy Wednesday afternoon.

Just another weekend in the Year of O'Meara. Mark O'Meara made the most money at the Skins Game and he didn't even have to work overtime. O'Meara bowed out of the competition when he bogeyed the first playoff hole, leaving Fred Couples, Tom Lehman and Greg Norman to fight for the $270,000 skin still on the board. It took five more holes for Lehman to collect his cash, while O'Meara sat Buddha-like on the ninth green, looking up only to sign autographs or shake hands.