It's the week before the next major championship in men's golf, and so it's time to approach that most serious of questions: Who is the best player not to have won a major? But this time let's put a slightly different spin on the subject as the PGA Championship at the Sahalee Country Club near Seattle approaches. Let's ignore the obvious candidates - Colin Mont-gom-erie, Phil Mickelson, Lee Westwood and David Duval - and examine a golfer not often included in this august group of players who should win a major.
Let's consider Jesper Parnevik, the affable Swede who is one of the best players in the world and whose play often goes unnoticed because of his, well, zany character. First, examine his recent record. Parnevik, 33, won the Scandinavian Masters last weekend in Kungsangen, Sweden. He was playing in front of a home crowd and won the tournament for the second time; he won in 1995 and this time took the tournament by three shots over Darren Clarke from Northern Ireland, one of the best young players on the European Tour.Parnevik won $220,000 for his efforts. The win was Parnevik's second of the season; his other victory came on the PGA Tour, the Phoenix Open in January. It's not easy to win on one of the two major tours, let alone win on each in the same season. Parnevik's win was his first on the PGA Tour. He tied for 14th place at the U.S. Open in June and for fourth at the British Open last month.
The result is that Parnevik is 13th on the PGA Tour's money list with $849,906. But more relevant for our purposes are his performances in the two most recent majors and his record in majors overall. He's come awfully close to winning, especially at the British Open.
The guy's a major player. Last year, Parnevik held a two-shot lead at the British Open before losing to Justin Leonard. In 1994, he held the lead right before Nick Price's charge at the end and his own bogey on the final hole cost him the championship.
Parnevik is also no slouch in the PGA Championship, notwithstanding his tie for 45th place last year at Winged Foot in Mamaroneck, N.Y., where Davis Love III won his first major. He tied for fifth place at the 1996 PGA Championship.
One would have to think Par-ne-vik is close to winning a major. Certainly, his play this year has been exemplary, and he should be full of confidence going into the PGA Championship.
But maybe not, because Par-ne-vik happens to be one of the most honest players in the game. He knows that today's superb game can disappear in a moment, maybe with one bad swing.
"You get these thoughts, you know," Parnevik said in Phoenix after finally coming through to win on the PGA Tour. "What's going to happen this time, and who is going to finish birdie-birdie-birdie to beat me by one? But it didn't happen."
On that January Sunday in Phoe-nix, Parnevik pulled out a cigar from his golf bag as he walked up the final fairway of the tournament, holding a three-shot lead. He figured he could hold on to win and decided to celebrate. Why not? It was time.
Now, he could win the PGA Championship.
Whether or not he does, Par-ne-vik will remain one of the most unusual - OK, eccentric - players in the game. It's a well-established bit of Parnevik trivia that he will eat volcanic sand for his health and energy and once ate nothing but that and fruit for three months. Richard Zokol had dinner with Parnevik during the 1994 Canadian Open and witnessed his eating habits.
"He brought a small bucket with sand, the size of a jar," Zokol recalled. "It was full of volcanic sand, and he took a heaping tablespoon of it and put it in his mouth. Then he gets some water, washes it down and does it again. He said it was very fine sand and that it scrapes and cleans the walls of the intestine and colon."
Never one to miss an opportunity for a cleansing experience, Zokol decided to follow Parnevik.
"I put the sand in my mouth, and then this vision came to me of a mouthful of dirt from the beach," Zokol said. "I couldn't swallow and had to chase it down with a big glass of water."
Zokol hasn't had any volcanic sand since. As for Parnevik, the volcanic sand is only the beginning. This is not a golfer who will bite the dust; he eats it. He also tries many other things to better himself and his game.
He has long worked with Olof Skipper, his psychologist and spiritual and health guru. Skipper advised him before the 1995 Scan-di-nav-ian Masters to spend time in his room listening to tapes of the musical sounds of the sea and of the wind through trees; Skipper was also on the tape, talking gently to Parnevik in the background. Parnevik won the tourn-a-ment by five shots.
Parnevik has a sense of humor about the ups and downs of what he tries. And he's willing to try anything.
The cap that he wears with the bill turned up? He started that in Florida during the winter of 1992, the better to get a tan. But Skipper noticed something else.
"When Skipper saw it," Parnevik once explained, "he said: `It's great. It's positive. It's amusing. It gives the impression that you might soar up into the clouds.' "
But later that year at a tournament in England, Parnevik shot 86 on a freezing, windy day. Instead of soaring into the clouds, he jumped into a freezing duck pond beside the final green.
"I deserved it," Parnevik said by way of explanation.
He also wears outfits that nearly glow in the dark. He might wear purple skin-tight slacks and a yellow shirt with pointed collars. However, he showed up at a tournament this year wearing an outfit that was positively conservative - black slacks, a black sweater with a white V-neck and a black shirt.
What was going on? "It's the fall collection," Parnevik said, amused by the question. "I'm bringing it out early this year."
All of this can take attention away from Parnevik's very good golf, but he does come by his sense of humor and colorful behavior honestly. He grew up watching his father, Bosse, one of Sweden's most popular comedians.
Parnevik and his father used to hit balls near their home in a Stockholm suburb. But the balls they would hit were floaters, and Parnevik would hit them into a canal at the bottom of their garden. Then he would scoop them out with a fisherman's net.
Parnevik ended up on a golf scholarship at Palm Beach Junior College in Florida. At 15, he had spent 10 days in Myrtle Beach, S.C., getting a sense of life in the United States.
"Barbecues and good greens," Parnevik said. "That's where I got my taste for the American way of life."
That life could well include a major, perhaps as early as next week.