I don’t think I’m telling you anything that is startling or earth-shaking when I say that there is a chasm of differences between the successful professional golfer and the myriad of amateur golfers who play the game on a regular basis. Aside from the millions of dollars involved in pro golf, there is also state-of-the-art equipment along with venues that amateurs can only dream of playing. For West Coast amateur golfers, playing PGA West, Pebble Beach, Torrey Pines and Riviera Country Club would be nothing short of a dream 72 holes of great golf. For members of the PGA Tour, it’s simply four weeks on the world’s most competitive circuit. Golf is a profession and a business. For the rest of us, it’s a game of frustration with moments of joy.
However, there is one aspect of the game of golf that is very common to those who play it at its highest levels as well as those avid amateur golfers who gauge success upon their ability to break 100. The common thread is a lack of inconsistency.
That golfer who is trying to break 100 might have a month or so of good scores in the 90s. Yet when least expected, it can all go south at a moment’s notice. Suddenly that 95 golfer is shooting between 105 and 110. The putts that used to fall aren’t dropping, the wayward drives that would hit a tree and bounce back to the fairway now go farther into the forest, and those crisp iron shots seem to keep coming up short and landing in the surrounding sand traps.
The same is true for professional golfers at the game’s highest levels. During the course of the past three weeks, Jordan Spieth, Hideki Matsuyama and Lydia Ko have found the winner’s circle on their respective tours. Spieth overcame a four-year hiatus from the top echelons of golf to win the Houston Open three weeks ago. His previous victory on tour had been the British Open in 2017. Somehow Jordan lost his way and floundered. Hideki Matsuyama came through in a big way two weeks ago when he put on the green jacket as the 2021 Masters champion. Like Spieth, it had been four long years of mediocre golf accentuated by a swing change. Lydia Ko was an up-and-coming star on the LPGA Tour, but after opening eyes with her stellar play as a teenager, she too had a fallow period on the links. Her win in Hawaii last weekend at the Lotte Championship was her first visit to the winner’s circle since 2018.
Yet not everyone can recover from mediocrity or even further back from the abyss in an effort to regain past form. A good case in point is current television commentator David Duval. At the turn of the century, Duval was pretty close to the equal of Tiger Woods. He owned 13 PGA Tour wins, he had a claret jug on his mantle after capturing the 2001 British Open, and he shot a stunning 59 on the final day of the Bob Hope Desert Classic at PGA West to win that event. Duval never again won after the 2001 British Open, the result of multiple injuries as well as a lost feeling on the golf course. A contemporary of Tiger and Phil, Duval has been completely away from competitive golf for the past decade.
Another British Open past champion with a distinctive Australian accent who is heard regularly on golf broadcasts is Ian Baker-Finch. He won the 1991 British Open at Royal Birkdale, shooting a record-setting 29 on the front nine during final-round play. An established professional, Baker-Finch had already found success as an international golfer. He had eight wins on the Australian Tour, two wins in Japan, won the Scandinavian Open on the European Tour, and the Colonial in Texas on the PGA Tour. Slowly but surely, it started to go away. Ian would win tourneys in Australia in 1992 and 1993, but then it all went south.
Baker-Finch wasn’t injury prone like Duval. Instead he suffered through a crisis of confidence. He could hit balls on the range all the while looking like a major champion. Then he would tee it up on the first hole and it would turn out to be one disaster after another. At the 1995 British Open, while being paired with Arnold Palmer, Baker-Finch stood on the first tee at St. Andrews and hooked his opening tee shot some 120 yards dead left and out of bounds. During the 1995 and 1996 seasons, Ian entered 29 tournaments. He made zero dollars as he either missed the cut or withdrew from all 29 events. In 1997 he carded a 92 at Troon during first-round play in the British Open. Ian admits to returning to the locker room where he openly wept.
Going back to golf’s golden age, Bob Lunn was the PGA Tour’s most improved player of the year in 1968 following victories in Atlanta and Memphis. The 1963 U.S. Public Links champ at Haggin Oaks, Lunn was a teammate of Johnny Miller at Lincoln High School in San Francisco as well as a protégé of Haggin Oaks pro Tommy LoPresti. At 6-foot-4 and 250 pounds, Lunn was a classic bomber. I know because I caddied for him during that time at the Western Open.
Lunn won at Hartford in 1969, beat Arnold Palmer by one stroke at Bay Hill in 1970, and won the Los Angeles Open in 1971 in a playoff over Billy Casper. The L.A. Open was hosted by Glen Campbell and Lunn ended up on television that Sunday night on the Glen Campbell Good Time Hour. He would win the next year at Atlanta. Then it would all come to an end. As stated earlier, Lunn looked more like a modern era tight end than a golfer. For whatever reason, he began a weight loss program and within about six months Bob Lunn was in the neighborhood of 190 pounds. He may have looked great, but he lost distance and he lost accuracy off the tee. Lunn qualified into the 1987 U.S. Open at the Olympic Club, but that was his last hurrah on golf’s center stage. He played in 48 PGA Senior Tour events, but never finished higher than 34th place. Lunn would spend the remainder of his career as the golf professional at Woodbridge Country Club in the Central Valley.
As earlier mentioned, once you’ve lost it, it’s hard to get it back as in the cases of David Duval, Ian Baker-Finch and Bob Lunn. We might end up writing something similar somewhere down the line if Rickie Fowler, Henrik Stenson and Martin Kaymer continue to struggle with their golf games. The quest for power might also be cause for concern with regard to Brooks Koepka and perhaps Bryson DeChambeau. Koepka is injury prone and DeChambeau is having a hard time living up to his claim that Augusta National, home of the Masters, is nothing more than a par-66. Meanwhile, Jordan Spieth, Hideki Matsuyama, and Lydia Ko have returned from mediocrity to find success on the PGA Tour and the LPGA Tour respectively. Of course, the next question is how long can they sustain their comebacks? Amateur golfers are wondering the same as well.
Title: Sometimes you don’t come back
Sourced From: www.record-bee.com/2021/04/23/sometimes-you-dont-come-back/
Published Date: 2021 04 23
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