Curtis was a 5-year-old who played past dark

He grew up on the golf course his grandfather built.

So no one should have been surprised that Ben Curtis -- as stunning a British Open champion as there has ever been -- loved golf.

Except even his parents had no idea how much until that frantic night back in Ostrander, Ohio, when Bob and Janice Curtis went to look in on their 5-year-old son at 11 o'clock and saw an empty bed.

"It's dark out and we're running around the house pulling our hair out," Bob Curtis recalled over the telephone Sunday. "And then I looked out the window and there's Ben on the putting green in his pajamas with the footies, putting away.

"He'd crawled out of his bed, gone over the course and turned on the lights in my office so he could keep practicing. I guess," his father added above the growing din in the background, "that's when we realized he really, really loved the game."

He was speaking from Mill Creek Golf Course, where he's the superintendent and where a few moments earlier, a crowd of family members, friends and neighbors erupted in celebration after watching Thomas Bjorn's birdie try at the 18th stop just inches short of the hole.

At about the same time, Curtis was standing on the practice range at Royal St. George's, firing one wedge shot after another at a nearby flag to get ready for a possible playoff.

Instead, Andrew Sutton, the European PGA Tour caddie whom Curtis hired just a week ago, leaned out of the equipment trailer where he'd gone to watch television and said matter-of-factly, "Ben, you're the Open champion. "

The 26-year-old rookie turned to the hundred or so spectators who had followed him to the range and lifted his wedge toward the sky. It was as fitting a tribute as any to one of the most unpredictable finishes in a major championship.

"I was shaking in my boots, obviously," Curtis said. "But I was just out there very focused on what I had to do, and then let my work speak for itself. If it was good enough, fine. If not, I can live with it."

As he made his way back to the 18th green for the trophy presentation, a crowd of reporters was gathered around Tiger Woods. Off to one side, Curtis saw his fiancee, Candace Beatty, with tears welling in her eyes. All she could say was, "Oh my God, baby."

Curtis broke into a grin. While divine intervention would have been welcome, it wasn't needed.

Curtis turned out to be a cool enough customer on his own. He was a junior champion, a state high school champion, a three-time All-American and he won back-to-back Ohio Amateur titles, a feat matched in the last half-century by only Arnold Palmer and John Cook.

But his pedigree traces back even further, to maternal grandfather Bill Black, who quit coaching high school basketball to build Mill Creek, about 25 miles north of Columbus, Ohio, and teach Ben how to play golf.

"It's a very nice public course, but not a championship course or anything," Curtis said. "But just having that at my footsteps was unbelievable."

Black died five months ago, but not before his grandson showed him something both men would treasure. It was Curtis' PGA Tour card, a hard-won prize that came only after three trips to qualifying school.

No one could have imagined that only a few months later Curtis would be the British Open champion. It's a moment, Bob Curtis says, that Black would have loved.

"He's there," his grandson added, "we just can't see him."

Bob didn't even watch all of the final round because he spent part of the day mowing Mill Creek's greens. When he finally settled in front of the TV, it was pure anguish.

His son navigated the humps and hollows of Royal St. George's linksland like a kid who grew up within a tee shot of the sea, instead of one who grew up almost smack in the middle of America. He got to 5-under par at the 11th. But as a pack that included major championship winners Woods, Vijay Singh, Davis Love III and European tour star Thomas Bjorn closed in, he bogeyed four of the final seven holes.

"He's a young kid and he'd never been there before," Bob said, "and therefore, you expect him to struggle.

"But Ben never scared easily. When he was a kid, he'd bet the grown-ups on the course $5 he could get the ball on the green, even though he didn't have a buck in his pocket."

Now, he has $1.1 million in the bank and the claret jug.

"There's so many professional golfers out there that set the dream just to win a major," he said. "And I did it in my first try."

Almost like a kid who was born and raised for this very occasion.

Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press.