Time - Man of the Year/Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso/moy/042792/04279915.000

Text File | 1992-09-10 | 2KB | 42 lines

                                                                                THE WEEK, Page 21

SOCIETY

Couples Becomes A Master


Fluid Freddy is now the world's very best golfer


    When Fred Couples strolls down the fairway, he often twirls
his golf club as if it were a walking stick. To all appearances,
he's out for a languorous constitutional in the park. Last week
he strolled the elegant greenness of Augusta National, the
citadel of American golf, and won the Masters tournament, his
first victory in a major tournament after 12 years as a
professional. In so doing, Couples, 32, became the sport's most
dominant player.

    The very casualness of Couples' approach to a game that
can turn a player's forearms to cement and his knees to jelly
is both the reason for his success and the source of his huge
popularity among golf devotees. He smiles as he wins, just as
he smiled when he was losing. And lately he's been winning a
lot, pocketing more than $1 million already this year, with
three tournament titles in the bag, and playing 28 rounds out
of 40 in the subpar 60s -- an unbelievable streak of excellence.

    For years critics said he was too casual and lacked the
competitive fire to go with a liquid swing that makes even other
pros jealous. When he blew a 5-ft. putt to help the American
team lose the Ryder Cup to Britain in 1989, he wept. His friend
Raymond Floyd, 49, as intense on the course as Couples is
relaxed, taught him some golf truths, prime among them that when
a player has a lead, he needs to get a bigger lead. In winning
the Masters, Couples beat -- who else? -- Raymond Floyd, by two
strokes.