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My wife was worried. I had just finished my two rounds at the Booz-Allen Classic, the PGA Tour event that used to be held at Congressional Country Club, and she asked my friend and caddy for the week Mark Diamond what she should say if someone asked her about my finish in the tournament. “Tell them he did just fine”, Mark told her. When Mark related the conversation to me I concurred with his answer, even though I had finished dead last in the field of 156 (actually, to be fair, 4 guys withdrew after starting, so it was really 152), with scores of 79 and 73 for a total of 10 over par 152. DFL- Dead Freaking Last. A few years back I would have been mortified, depressed, questioning the value of my life and my very existence. But now I didn’t feel that way at all. Had I lost my competitive spirit? Was I satisfied with poor results? Not at all, and to explain why I should take you back a month or so and fill you in on the whole story.
In the hierarchy of competitive golf club professionals exist on a low rung. We play for the most part against each other, and our organization, the PGA of America, provides the basis for a playing schedule that allows the interested club pro to compete in quite a few events, a few of which pay decent money and may even qualify you for other larger events. There are 41 Sections in the PGA of America, and each has its own yearly battle for Player of the Year honors. My greatest year, 2001, netted me the National Club Professional Championship among a few other important local events and added close to 80,000 dollars to my bank account, quite a haul for someone in my position. There are now countless Tours for those who are trying to play golf for a living on a full-time basis, but club pros work for a living, and play golf as an aside, unless you consider that we are golfers by vocation, and playing golf should probably be part of the deal. That being said, there are some pretty good golfers in the club professional ranks, as evidenced by the Middle Atlantic’s own Chip Sullivan, who finished 31st in last year’s PGA Championship at Whistling Straits.
Each year there are five or so events for club pros which would qualify as our “majors”. Every May we’d play in two of those, the qualifiers for the U.S. Open and for the local PGA Tour stop, the Booz-Allen Classic, formerly known as the Kemper Open. The Booz-Allen qualifier was open to all Middle Atlantic PGA Class A professionals, and was held at the TPC at Avenel, the usual site of the tournament, where there are two spots available. The Booz-Allen was our only chance to play in the big leagues, other than the U. S. Open, which is open to any professional as well as to amateurs with handicaps of one or less. The qualifiers were 5 days apart, and as luck would have it, my putter got hot just at the right time. At Avenel I hit 8 greens and shot 71, squirreling around in 25 putts. At the Open qualifier at Towson Golf and Country Club I hit 10 greens, had 26 putts, and shot 70, which in difficult conditions (wind, hard greens, and tough pins) turned out to be the low score for the day.
Needless to say I was a happy camper. I play in qualifiers because I love to compete and would like nothing more than to play in the events that are the prize for success, although the old saying “be careful what you wish for, you just might get what you want” comes to mind when considering the prospects for the week of June 6-13. So what had I gotten myself into? First off I faced a 36-hole walk on Monday at Woodmont CC in Rockville, MD in the U.S. Open Sectional Qualifier against a field that included 80 PGA Tour players, along with various Nationwide Tour players and competitors from the recently completed NCAA Championship held at nearby Caves Valley. As I perused the list of players I noted names such as Luke Donald, Peter Lonard, Justin Leonard, Scott Hoch, Mark O’Meara, Tom Kite, and a slew of other great players. I was paired with Kevin Stadler, son of Craig “The Walrus” Stadler, who had won two Nationwide Tour events last year to earn his PGA card.
The Sectional is held at Woodmont most every year, and when the Tour players are there the scores are fairly predictable. My thought was that 8 under would get in clean, with 7 needing a playoff, and as it turned out I was right on the money. Not only would my play need to be almost error free, but I would have to be fresh from start to finish, not an easy task with my history of back issues. After finishing at Woodmont I would head over to Congressional for the Booz-Allen where I would get my only practice round on Tuesday, Wednesday being the pro-am day in which only the top 50 players get in a round. I planned to practice the various aspects of my game Wednesday, then rest up for Thursday and Friday’s rounds. That amount of golf might not be a chore for a lot of Tour players who walk almost every day, but it looked to be plenty grueling for me.
I have been fighting my body since I was 23 years old. I thought my career was over, my lower back problems having finally beaten me. About that time I met a trainer, Charlie McMillin, who was practicing a new type of therapy called Muscle Activation Technique (MAT), and when I tell you that my conditioning today seems like a miracle to me I am not exaggerating. As soon as I listened to Charlie and completely eliminated stretching from my daily workout, replacing it with strengthening isometric exercises, I began to make progress. Charlie tests my individual muscles for strength, and when he finds that one is “shut down” he can “activate” it by manual palpation, or pressuring, the areas where the muscle attaches to bone. Having undergone a two-level spinal fusion some 20+ years ago the biomechanics of my body are screwy to say the least, and the worst thing I could possibly be doing all day is golfing. But, that’s what I do, and I push myself every day to try to improve my game. I see Charlie weekly to keep my muscles active and symmetrical, and the sessions allow me to keep working out on the Bowflex machine I put into the basement. Still, I realize that any round, or indeed any swing could be my last, and that serves to make me appreciate the opportunity to workout and practice as much as I can.
You can see where I might be a bit anxious about my ability to negotiate the walking and practicing leading up to Congressional, which is no picnic to walk in its own right. Add that to the fact that in neither qualifier did I strike the ball particularly well, and the anxiety level only increases. Over the years I have discovered that the difference between golf on the PGA Tour, especially major championships, and all other golf is the difficulty of the courses. While the Booz-Allen was obviously not a major, Congressional is a major championship golf course. It is long (7250 yards) and narrow (fairways less than 30 yards wide), and sports thick rough and big, fast, ridged greens. The task presented to the player is quite simple: hit every shot well or suffer the consequences. Another way to look at it is to say that every shot that is not hit well makes the next shot exponentially more difficult. As a short hitter (I would average 270 yards off the tee) every drive in the rough left a shot long enough that I would have trouble reaching the green, much less getting the ball close to the pin. Every green missed left a difficult pitch or bunker shot, and even shots that hit the green over 30 feet from the pin often left a lag putt that needed to traverse one or more ridges.
Woodmont, on the other hand, is a more manageable venue, although the tree-lined North Course is certainly no pushover. The scores at Woodmont, as I mentioned before, are low to lower, and as is the case everywhere these days if you are going to do well against any sort of quality field you are going to have to play your tail off. I have played in the Sectional here some 10 times over the last 20 years, and since making the Open as an amateur in 1981 I have failed to qualify for a second trip. I have been in two playoffs to get to the Open, in 1992 and 1997, both starting at the par 5 10th on the North Course. The first year I shot even par over two rounds on the North in a small field and ended up in a 3 for 1 playoff with Eric Booker and Greg Twiggs. With only Twiggs and myself left on the 3rd playoff hole my calves began to cramp up after each swing, and I was down on the fairway with my caddy pulling on my leg as Twiggs hit the green in regulation, leading to a winning par. In 97 the playoff was 13 for 5, and the lineup was formidable: Mark O’Meara, Peter Jacobsen, Craig Stadler, Jay Don Blake, David Feherty, and Gary Hallberg were among the participants. I had my chance on number 10, but missed a 6-footer for birdie and ended up an alternate. Numerous other times I had played decently and missed by more than a few, as each year the scores descended.
Coming into Monday’s rounds I was a bit nervous about my physical state. The previous week I had developed a familiar numbness in my right leg and had to withdraw from a 27-hole Section club pro event. I had Charlie work on me a couple of times during the week, however, and it seemed he had, as usual, alleviated the problem. Teeing off at 7:50, with a 40 minute drive and needing an hour to warm up, along with time for showering, back isometrics, and breakfast, gave me a wake-up call just prior to 4 AM. That was no problem, as I regularly wake up before 5 for a normal days work in order to work out, and this day I felt fine. My first tee shot was a draw that ended up stymied behind some trees, and a first hole bogey is definitely not the way anyone wants to start when 8 under is the target score. I played fairly well over the course of the round, and came to 17 one under par. My inability to make a par, or even a bogey, on the 17th had cost me two Opens in the past, and one year I made par on the hole only to find that my group had skipped from the 6th hole to the 17th, and by playing the wrong hole incurred a two shot penalty. When I got back around to playing it in the correct order, of course I 3- putted for bogey. This year the curse continued: standing over a 2 ½ footer for par I noticed a bug floating down toward my ball, and in lifting my putter to shoo it away I inadvertently nudged my ball forward, thus incurring a one stroke penalty. I made par on 18 for 72, but knew that I had to go seriously low on the easier South Course to have a chance.
My back and legs felt fine, but nothing really matters when all your putts graze the edge or lip out, so my closing 71 left me feeling good about walking 36 with no problem, but 8 shots out of a playoff. I had hit the ball fairly well, although I was sure that it was not good enough for Congressional, as I had played a practice round a few weeks before and had seen the demands of the great old course. The question now was “could I find a way to improve before Thursday’s first round?”. I have been in this situation many times, having played in multiple PGA Championships, and I can assure you it is no fun. I mean, sure, it’s nice to be in the tournament, and not too many people get to play in these things, but once you get past that it’s all about playing well and not embarrassing yourself in front of thousands of people, especially in your own hometown. My good friend Gary Hallberg, a 4 time Tour winner who has struggled greatly over the past 10 years, once told me that he called Wednesday afternoon on the range before the first round “Swing-O-Rama”, as he desperately searched for any swing thoughts that might work the next day. Unfortunately, having to work for a living before throwing myself out into the fray on the most difficult courses in the world many times leads me to going through a similar exercise.
This week was a bit different though, as I found something Wednesday morning that appeared to fulfill my wishes for a swing that would allow me to play the course instead of grinding over every shot. On Tuesday Mark and I arrived at the course mid-morning, and after hitting some balls and taking care of some equipment issues decided to play after lunch. Before we teed off I needed to pick up some extra badges for friends wanting to attend the tournament, and when I arrived at the Tournament Office the director, Pete Cleaves, saw me and whispered into his walkie-talkie “I think I just found the person we need”. I wondered what I had done wrong (was I disqualified?) but as it turned out he asked me to help out in a junior clinic going on at the range. I was in no great hurry so I had no problem obliging, and by the time the clinic ended it was 3 o’clock and I hurried to the first tee. Standing there when I arrived was Davis Love, who was set to play along with Jeff Sluman (an old friend of mine from mini-tour days) and Steve Stricker. I was fine with waiting for them to go on ahead, but to my surprise Davis asked me if I wanted to join them, which of course I did. We played nine holes, and while I didn’t strike the ball particularly well it is always a great thrill to play with the best players in the world, especially in a practice round when they are relaxed and having a good time, and are even amenable to fielding questions about what they are doing with their games. I am lucky to have enough of a reputation as a teacher and player, and they have seen me play in enough of these events, that I feel relatively comfortable in their midst, although their talent and skill far surpass my own. I learn by watching and listening, and I even asked Jeff if I could sneak into his stance to see how far he stood from the ball (we are both short guys, but he stands incredibly close to the ball, so much so that I didn’t even feel like I could hit it from his stance). It is these types of experiences that keep me trying to qualify for these things, and as long as there are spots to play for you can bet I’ll be in the field trying.
The downside of all this is that there comes a time on Thursday when you have hit a drive off the first or tenth tee and keep score. I have often said that club pros and teaching pros quit mostly due to the fact that they lose the stomach for playing. Sure, they still like to play, just as long as no one is watching or counting their strokes. There is nothing harder than playing golf for real, and it is ever so much easier to take yourself out of the stress of having to play by simply not doing it. I guess the logic is that if I used to play I have enough credibility built up to just sit back and talk about how to play the game, and even how to play under pressure, without ever having to face any. Golf is great to talk about, and relatively easy to teach if you know anything about swing mechanics, but it is brutal to put your game out for inspection and actually play. In my case while I am considered a good club professional player, I am not in the same league as the players in this tournament. Even the two Middle Atlantic club pros who qualified with me to play this year would have to be considered better suited than myself to play Congressional, since they both (Rick Schuller and Dirk Schultz) hit the ball incredibly long, even by Tour standards.
And so it was on Tuesday night I was despondent, worrying about my poor ball striking, especially my driving, and wondering what the hell I could do about it before Thursday. I did have Wednesday to practice, but to play the course I would have to get off before the pro-am, which meant ball-in-the-air by 6:50, which meant a wake-up call at 3:30. I seriously considered blowing it off and just hitting some balls, but, as is my nature, I made myself get up and over to the course, and we were there on number 11 before Sergio and his group of amateurs got to the 10th tee. To make matters more interesting I had decided to try a decidedly different set-up as suggested by Mark, whom I have known since our days on JC Goosie’s mini-tour in the early 80’s. Mark is a great teacher in his own right, although for various reasons he has not held a teaching position for a number of years, opting instead for a trading desk on Wall Street. Even so, he is one of the most knowledgeable golfers I know, and I trust his eye implicitly. He wanted me to un-cock myself at address, leveling out my shoulders while setting my hips and hands back into a more centered position. I have always had a hard time staying down into my right side in the backswing, followed by an even harder time clearing my hips into the forward swing. My first shot was off the 11th tee, and to my surprise it was perfect, a draw down the left side. Each successive shot seemed to get better, and by the time I hit a perfect Rescue Club into 17 I had seen the best stretch of ball-striking I could ever remember. A good session at the range continued the positive feeling, and we spent the rest of the day working on putting, pitching, and bunker shots.
After watching my 10 year old daughter Casey graduate from 4th grade Thursday morning we made our way out to the course, with high hopes for a good round. But of course this is golf, and waking up is one sure way to ruin the previous day’s hopes and dreams. Indeed, the round was a nightmare, as I started with a missed 3 footer to bogey the 10th (my first hole, an uphill, 480 yard monster with water running up the entire right side of the hole), and hitting solid shots over the next two greens into impossible positions to make par. I then began to flare my driver out to the right, and the struggle was on. You know it’s bad when your only hope is to break 80, then pray that waking up the next morning will somehow reverse the trend in a positive fashion just as it had done in the opposite direction the day before. Alas, we couldn’t even finish the day off, as a thunderstorm interrupted play on our 15th hole and we were instructed to be in position at 7 am Friday morning, another 3:30 wake-up call.
Thankfully, Friday turned out to be a better day altogether, and I put together a decent round, shooting 73 with disappointing bogies on the last two holes. I stuck with the set-up change and felt more comfortable with it, and felt good about my prospects moving forward. Indeed, Mark and I retired to the range after lunch and spent two more hours tinkering with things, and by the time we left the grounds it was 6 PM. It’s not often I get to hang out in that atmosphere, and I certainly wasn’t going to waste a minute of it. It wasn’t until just before we left that I looked at the scores, where I saw that I had beaten exactly no one in the field except the four guys who for whatever reasons (perhaps fearing being beaten by me) had withdrawn. It dawned on me that I was dead last, and for a second that knowledge jabbed into me like a sharp stick. It only took another second, however, for me to ask myself “just who in this field was I supposed to beat?” The answer I came up with was “no one”. I had a great time, played some respectable, though not great, golf, and felt like I learned quite a bit about my game. I played with great players, got lots of good film on my video camera to study and help my teaching, and I helped with a junior clinic to boot. So if you ask me about my experience, I’ll tell you that it was great. It’s nice to play well, but it’s also nice just to play.
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