Peter Jacobsen Is Recipient of 2012 Old Tom Morris Award

By Golf Course Superintendents Association of America

MULTIPLE PGA TOUR WINNER and golf course designer Peter Jacobsen has been selected to receive the 2012 Old Tom Morris Award by the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA). The award will be presented during the 2012 GCSAA Education Conference at Celebrate GCSAA! presented by Syngenta on February 28 in Las Vegas.

“Peter has done much for the game of golf, and he has been an advocate for golf course superintendents,” said GCSAA President Robert Randquist. “He is a perfect fit for the Old Tom Morris Award, and we look forward to recognizing him at the GCSAA Education Conference.”

GCSAA’s most prestigious honor, the Old Tom Morris Award is presented each year to an individual who “through a continuing lifetime commitment to the game of golf has helped to mold the welfare of the game in a manner and style exemplified by Old Tom Morris.” Morris (1821-1908) was greenkeeper and golf professional at the St. Andrews Links Trust Golf Club of St. Andrews, Scotland. Morris was a four-time winner of the British Open (1861, ’62, ’64 and ’67) and ranked as one of the top links designers of the 19th century.

Jacobsen won seven times on the PGA TOUR and owns two Champions Tour majors, the 2004 U.S. Senior Open and the 2005 Senior Players Championship. He played for the U.S. Ryder Cup teams in 1985 and 1995. In 2003 he was PGA TOUR Comeback Player of the Year after winning the Greater Hartford Open at the age of 49.

Jacobsen is president and CEO of Peter Jacobsen Sports, a sports marketing firm he created in 1988. He also co-founded a golf course design company with Jim Hardy (Jacobsen Hardy Golf Course Design) that has developed nearly 20 courses and renovated several others worldwide since 1995.

Jacobsen also has provided commentary for various TV golf broadcasts, including recent work as a commentator for NBC and Golf Channel at the 2011 U.S. Open.

Past Winners

Arnold Palmer was the first recipient of the Old Tom Morris Award in 1983. Other winners include Nick Price, Judy Rankin, Greg Norman, Charlie Sifford, Jack Nicklaus, Rees Jones, Pete Dye, Tim Finchem, Nancy Lopez, Ken Venturi, Ben Crenshaw, Tom Fazio, Byron Nelson, Dinah Shore, Tom Watson, Chi Chi Rodriguez, Gene Sarazen, Robert Trent Jones Sr., Patty Berg, Gerald Ford and Bob Hope.

(Photo: Courtesy of GCSAA)

U.S. Senior Open: Cochran to Attempt Langer Double

ONE LEFTY FINISHED SECOND at the British Open. That would be Phil Mickelson, whose final-round charge fizzled on the back nine. But the following week a lesser-known lefty won the senior British. The Champions Tour’s Russ Cochran claimed his first professional major at Walton Heath in England last Sunday.

Can Cochran win consecutive majors by capturing the U.S. Senior Open title at Inverness this week? Bernhard Langer performed the remarkable feat a year ago.

(Russ Cochran)

PGATour.com contributor Vartan Kupelian thinks Cochran can do it. Kupelian ranks the veteran lefty No. 1 in his U.S. Senior Open Power Rankings.

“Now that he’s [Cochran] back and fit again after a wrist injury,” Kupelian writes, “a back-to-back isn’t out of the question. Consider that Cochran’s first two Champions Tour victories, in 2010, came in successive tournaments last September in Korea and North Carolina.”

Cochran, a journeyman who won just once in 26 years on the PGA Tour, is flourishing on the second-chance tour. The 52-year-old Kentucky native has three victories since joining the Champions Tour in February 2009.

Cochran will face tough competition at Inverness. Other players have been knocking at the major door, including John Cook and Mark Calcavecchia. Calc perhaps only needs a good putting week to kick the door in. Troubled by a thumb injury this season, defending champion Langer might be rounding into form after last week’s T12 at the Senior British Open that included a pair of 69s on the weekend.

As Kupelian reports, there are five players in the U.S. Senior Open field who have won at Inverness dating back to 1973: Craig Stadler, Hale Irwin, Bob Tway, Paul Azinger (update: Azinger has withdrawn) and Bruce Lietzke. Inverness has hosted four U.S. Opens, two U.S. Senior Opens, two PGA Championships and one U.S. Amateur.

ESPN and NBC have the TV coverage.

−The Armchair Golfer

Nick Price, Ambassador of Golf

CHAMPIONS TOUR PLAYER NICK PRICE has been named the 2011 Ambassador of Golf by Northern Ohio Golf Charities. Ambassador of Golf is an annual award given to a person who epitomizes the ideals of the game and demonstrates concerns for others on and off the golf course. Still very much an active player, Price was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2003 and is someone who has been described as the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet.

“Nick has been a world-class player for more than four decades and has truly been an international ambassador for the game of golf,” said PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem. “With 29 international victories in addition to his 18 wins on the PGA Tour, Nick has helped to grow the game and give back to those less fortunate since turning professional in 1977.”

Price said he was extremely honored to be the recipient of the award. “It has been a privilege for me to have played golf professionally throughout the world and I hope that I not only inspired young golfers along the way, but also set an example for them to follow as did those before me.”

Price will be honored in a ceremony at Firestone Country Club on August 3 during the Bridgestone Invitational.

Three of Nick’s career victories were majors: two PGA Championships and a British Open. He won two of them back to back when he took both the British Open and PGA Championship in 1994. As noted here yesterday, he was ranked No. 1 in the world for nearly a year.

The wins have slowed down, but Price continues to display the long game that helped make him the game’s best player in the early 1990s. He has won four times since joining the Champions Tour, including this year’s Toshiba Classic.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: Keith Allison, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Hale Irwin Wins 2036 MasterCard Championship

Editor’s note: In honor of 65-year-old Hale Irwin being in contention at the Senior PGA Championship, this is a look back at a post inspired by his 2007 win at the the MasterCard Championship. It was his 45th Champions Tour title. Irwin was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1992. I’m pretty certain he is going to play golf forever.

ON SUNDAY HALE IRWIN FIRED a final-round 68 to capture the 2036 MasterCard Championship by two strokes. It was a Champions Tour-record 73rd title for the ageless Irwin, and his first win since turning 90, making him the oldest competitor to win a golf tournament. (Or just about anything, for that matter.)

“I’ve lost about 10 yards off the tee,” Irwin said. “But my iron game is solid and the putts were dropping from everywhere this week.”

Irwin is also the oldest player to win the U.S. Open. He won his third national title in 1990 at 45, or half his current age. The tour veteran sank a 45-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole that tied him with journeyman Mike Donald. He beat Donald the following day in a playoff that went 19 holes at Medinah Country Club in the Chicago suburbs.

After sinking his final putt to clinch the MasterCard Championship in Hawaii, the jubilant Irwin ran along the ropes (actually he walked-jogged) slapping hands with the appreciative gallery.

“Winning never gets old,” he said.

−The Armchair Golfer

(This is an ARMCHAIR GOLF spoof.)

Ken Green to Play in This Week’s Senior PGA Championship

WHEN KEN GREEN TEES it up on Thursday at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky, he will likely be the first amputee to play in the Senior PGA Championship. Green will be allowed to use a golf cart. The 53-year-old tour veteran was granted an exemption because he was a U.S. Ryder Cup team member in 1989.

“I’m really psyched about the opportunity to play in the championship, because it’s a wonderful venue and a wonderful championship,” Green said at PGA.com.

Good for Ken Green. The man has been through hell.

In June 2009 a right-front tire on Green’s RV blew out on a Mississippi interstate highway. Green and passengers tumbled down an embankment and struck a large oak tree, killing everyone except Green—his brother, his girl friend and his dog, a German Shepard that Green once rescued from an alligator attack in Florida. Not long after the former PGA Tour player lost his right leg below the knee and was fitted with a prosthetic limb. Green vowed that he would return to golf one day.

Then tragedy struck again in January 2010 when Green’s 21-year-old son was found dead in a dorm room at Southern Methodist University. An autopsy revealed that a combination of alcohol and prescription drugs was the cause of death.

Green’s golf comeback began about a year ago when he teamed with Mike Reid for a 26th-place tie at the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf in Savannah, Georgia. He played in two more 2010 events and averaged just over 75 strokes per round. Not bad for an amputee competing on the Champions Tour, but certainly not the brash Ken Green who won five times on the PGA Tour.

The truth is, the scores and money totals don’t matter much now. Just playing again is a major victory for a man who has lost his son, girl friend, brother, dog and leg.

“I believe that my story may be good for someone who has suffered a similar fate,” Green said. “If I can serve as any encouragement to someone missing a limb or possibly a parent who may be able to bring a kid to the course, I feel my time will be well spent.”

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: Keith Allison, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Condoleezza Rice Tees Off in Birmingham

FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE Condoleezza Rice wasted no time on the first tee at Shoal Creek during the pro-am at the Regions Tradition, the year’s first major on the Champions Tour. Forgoing a practice swing, Rice teed the ball and smacked it outside of the ropes. And off she went with Hall of Famer Tom Watson and her other playing partners.

Jon Solomon of The Birmingham News reported that Rice “looked nervous early.” Nervous or not, Rice appeared at times to be as serious and resolute about her golf game as she was about shaping the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration.

Rice ignored Watson’s suggestion to tee off closer on the 2nd hole, later saying it’s harder to get the ball as high in the air from the shorter tees. She is her own person, off and on the golf course.

“I know at Stanford we used logic,” Rice said to Watson, a Stanford alum. “Today we’re going to use brute strength.”

It was the Birmingham native’s second pro-am at a golf course where she would not have been welcomed two decades ago. Rice became a Shoal Creek member in 2009. On Wednesday she marveled that the girl who couldn’t enter a Birmingham movie theater later became secretary of state.

Rice caught the golf bug in 2005 while vacationing in Atlanta. She likes to keep track of fairways hit, number of shots to the green and total putts to analyze how she can improve her scores.

On the 3rd hole, Rice took Watson’s advice to hit from the front tees. “It’s about time,” Tom kidded. The Shoal Creek member sent her drive right down the middle.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: NewsOne.com)

Fast Times for Anthony Kim and Jeff Overton

IS FAST PLAY INCOMPATIBLE with the modern tour player and big-money tournament golf? Apparently not.

I just read in Brian Wacker’s Monday Backspin column that Anthony Kim and Jeff Overton flew around the Blue Monster last weekend. Maybe they stole carts from the Champions Tour because they really got around in a hurry.

Admittedly, both Kim and Overton weren’t anywhere close to being in contention at the WGC-Cadillac Championship. Kim opened with a ghastly 80, followed by a 74. Overton shot 75 and 77 in the first two rounds.

But here’s where it gets interesting. Playing at warp speed (at least by PGA Tour standards), both players actually shot lower scores on the weekend.

How fast did they go? The pair clocked a brisk 2 hours and 51 minutes in Saturday’s third round. Kim carded a 68, which is pretty impressive. Overton had a semi-respectable 73.

They were just getting started. On Sunday, they left skid marks at Doral.

AK fired an even-par 72 for a 6-over total of 294. Overton posted another 73 for a 10-over total of 298. Unfortunately, Kim and Overton finished 60th and 66th (which was dead last), respectively. But they didn’t agonize over yardages. They didn’t count blades of Bermuda. They didn’t plumb bob. They didn’t ask for a ruling and chat with an official for 15 minutes. I seriously doubt if they even stepped into a porta-potty.

No, they played their final round in a little more than two hours. TWO HOURS. I don’t care who you are, that’s fast. Some people have never played nine holes in two hours.

Now they need to shoot lower scores. Kim, for example, is 14 over in his last three stroke-play tournaments. That’s not good.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: Global Voyager, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Fred ‘My Achin’ Back’ Couples Leads in LA

AS I WRITE THIS with the third round in progress, Fred Couples is leading the Northern Trust Open at Riviera Country Club. Freddie shot a 68 in the first round. He backed that up with a 66 to take the sole lead at the halfway point. A bunch of flat bellies (Aaron Baddeley, Kevin Na, John Senden, Trevor Immelman) are chasing the 51-year-old veteran who now calls himself a Champions Tour player.

It was just a week or two ago I read that Couples was couch ridden with his chronically bad back. His annual golf trek to Pacific Palisades sounded like it was in serious jeopardy. But if Freddie could crawl to his car and make the two-hour drive from his home in La Quinta, he would play in LA. He loves the event, loves Riviera.

Couples has to be the best bad-back golfer of all time. (I probably could think of a few others if I tried.) The guy can hardly practice. He warms up with woods because he doesn’t want to aggravate his back with the shorter iron clubs. He has to save it for the course.

They showed his swing in slo-mo. He still has a great big turn, especially for an old player. Pretty amazing. He’s averaging 298 off the tee this week—with an aching back. And we don’t despise him, do we? Any other 50 something who could drive it 298 with a faulty back and without practicing would be an object of hate. Not Freddie. Everyone loves Freddie.

So Couples shows up and strolls into the lead. Can he last for 72? Will his back and putting stroke hold up? Can he actually win?

I don’t know. Probably not. I’d like to see it, but I don’t think it will happen. I hope he proves me wrong.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: Bill Spruce, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Kenny Perry Heads Champions Tour Rookies

ANOTHER CROP OF FRESH 50-year-old faces is invading the Champions Tour. There’s no Fred Couples or Corey Pavin this year. But there are more than a few guys who can play. (Actually, they all can play.) Fourteen-time PGA Tour winner Kenny Perry heads the list. TV tower men Paul Azinger, Ian Baker-Finch and Brad Faxon (who NBC let go and turns 50 in August) will test their skills on the old-boys circuit. It will be interesting to see if Baker-Finch can compete. His game disintegrated a few years after winning the 1991 British Open.

There are a few other players with solid PGA Tour resumes. Mark Brooks won seven times, including the 1996 PGA Championship. Steve Pate was a six-time winner and played on two Ryder Cup teams. John Huston, Steve Lowery and Jim Gallagher Jr. are also proven winners. There are also a handful of lesser-known players who might flourish the second time around.

CLASS OF 2011
Paul Azinger
Ian Baker-Finch
Mark Brooks
Tom Byrum
Jim Carter
Roger Chapman
Brad Faxon
Jim Gallagher Jr.
Ernie Gonzalez
John Huston
Steve Lowery
Bob Lohr
Frankie Minoza
Mark Mouland
Steve Pate
Chris Perry
Kenny Perry
Lee Rinker
Greg Twiggs
Willie Wood

The Champions Tour visits Boca Raton, Florida, this week for the $1.8 million Allianz Championship. The indestructible Bernhard Langer defends.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: ben_lei, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Report: Early Prison Release Expected for Jim Thorpe

LAST APRIL CHAMPIONS TOUR player Jim Thorpe entered a minimum-security Federal Prison Camp located on Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, to serve a one-year sentence for failing to pay more than $2 million in income taxes.

The winner of 13 Champions Tour and three PGA Tour titles had pleaded guilty to two counts of failing to pay income taxes. In addition to the prison sentence, the 61-year-old Thorpe was also sentenced to two years of supervised release and 200 hours of community service. He also must attempt to repay the owed taxes.

Golfweek’s Jeff Rude reported earlier this week that Thorpe expects to be released early, possibly this month, according to Thorpe’s pastor, Keith Wilkins of Crossings Community Church in Lake Mary, Florida.

Thorpe has been suspended from the Champions Tour since last February. He plans to resume his tournament golf career once he’s released from prison.

Born in Roxboro, North Carolina, the ninth of 12 kids whose father was a golf course superintendant, Thorpe attended Morgan State University on a football scholarship. The running back turned golf pro in 1972 and earned nearly $2 million in 459 events on the PGA Tour before joining the 50-and-older tour in 2000.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: Ted Van Pelt, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Zach Johnson’s Caddie on Champions Tour Quest

HERE’S SOMETHING I’VE NOTICED. Besides being good at caddying, caddies are good at playing. Damon Green has that dual identity. Green spends most of his time on the golf course as Zach Johnson’s caddie. Not a bad gig.

But Green is also a player. After tying for 12th at the first stage Q-school qualifier in Orlando, Florida, Zach’s bag man is headed to the Champions Tour Q-school final stage next week at TPC Eagle Trace in Coral Springs. Green will compete in a field of 70 for five exempt spots on the 2011 Champions Tour. Seven more players will earn conditional playing status.

Green was leading the first stage going into the last round until, in his words, he “played like a caddie.” He shot 77 in windy conditions after solid rounds of 69, 70 and 67.

What happens if Damon gets his card? Is it goodbye, Zach, hello Bernhard, Freddie and the Champions Tour?

Not exactly. Green will still work for the 2007 Masters champion and play the Champions Tour when his employer’s schedule allows it.

“I’m still a caddie,” Green told Global Golf Post. Yeah, a caddie who can play a pretty sweet game of golf.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Image: gomattolson/Flickr)

Rod Spittle, a Win for Obscurity

ROD SPITTLE WON THE AT&T Championship this past weekend the same way Bernhard Langer and Fred Couples win Champions Tour events. Spittle shot the lowest score, a 12-under total of 201 that tied him with multiple-winner Jeff Sluman. Then he dispatched Sluman on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff.

But, if you’re like me, you’re asking two things: 1) Who in the name of Allen Doyle is Rod Spittle? 2) And what on God’s green fairways is Spittle doing winning a Champions Tour event?

Spittle, 55, had no status on the Champions Tour, which meant he had to play in Monday qualifiers to try to grab one of the three or four available spots in the small fields loaded with former PGA Tour stars. They used to call Monday qualifiers “rabbits.” Spittle has been a rabbit for five years. He has made it into five tournaments this season.

Thanks to the unlikeliest of wins, Spittle now has a one-year exemption on the Champions Tour. He also received a check for $262,500.

A native of Ontario, Canada, and lifelong amateur who played collegiate golf for Ohio State, Spittle left a sales and marketing career in corporate insurance to turn professional at the age of 49. His wife also quit her job, the couple sold the house, and they hit the road to, well, not glory and riches.

The Spittles did have some financial backers, but it was still a risky proposition, a choice the two-time Canadian amateur champion figured he had hundred-guessed.

Spittle’s best year was 2007 when he won $325,000. Last season was a big fat goose egg.

“We just kept plugging away,” he said.

The stability of a regular income gone, the plan didn’t make much financial sense. That’s the nature of some dreams. Today, Spittle is glad he didn’t have the good sense to give up.

−The Armchair Golfer

A Fresh Start for Bill Glasson

IF YOU HAD SEEN Bill Glasson back in the 1980s, you might have mistaken him for a skinny Charley Hoffman. Glasson had long, curly blond locks. Before joining the PGA Tour in 1983, he was a two-time All-American at Oral Roberts University.

I read at GolfWRX.com that the “dude never wore shoes when he played [golf]” while growing up in Fresno, California. Glasson looks more like a surfer than a golfer in a 1970s photo taken from a high-school yearbook.

Turning 50 at the end of April, Glasson is one of the lesser-known players who has joined the Champions Tour this season. Steve Lowery is another. Both are playing in this week’s AT&T Championship in San Antonio, Texas.

Glasson was a good player who won seven times in a 12-year span on the PGA Tour. His best finish in a major was a T-4 in the 1995 U.S. Open, and he amassed nearly $7 million in career winnings.

I wrote about Blake Adams’s medical troubles earlier this year, but Adams has nothing on Glasson. Bill had a respectable career despite enduring 19 surgeries on all parts of his body, including his elbow, sinuses, knee, lip, forearm and lower back. By the time he reached his 40s, physical problems limited his play on the PGA Tour.

Now he’s back on the second-chance circuit. In 11 Champions Tour events, Glasson has made 10 cuts (with two sixth-place finishes) and is 63rd on the money list.

−The Armchair Golfer

Tom Pernice Jr. Refuses to Act His Age

THE FALL IS WHEN the leaves turn and PGA Tour players (and wannabes) scramble to get in the top 125 on the official money list to secure their card for the coming season.

Tom Pernice Jr. is one of those lads. Only Pernice is no lad. He’s a fossil, age 51. At a time when most players his age would see dollars signs flashing in neon on the Champions Tour, Pernice is intent on playing with the flat bellies a while longer.

“I still think I can compete against the best in the world,” Pernice told Golfweek.

The 28-year veteran missed earning back his PGA Tour card at the 2009 Q School by a single shot. And get this: Pernice took a double on the last hole. That is nightmare material.

In the 2010 season, he’s played 20 events on the PGA Tour, earning $573,551, and eight events on the Champions Tour, banking $798,410. Add them together and it’s a very good year. But Tom needs more of the PGA Tour bucks. He currently sits at 138th on the PGA Tour money list, so he has work to do to get his card.

This week Pernice is in the field at the Frys.com Open in San Martin, California, which has a purse of $5 million. This week’s Champions Tour event, the Administaff Small Business Classic in The Woodlands, Texas, has a $1.7 million payout. That’s a big difference. But it’s not about the money for Tom. He’s still determined to tee it up with the young guys.

“When I feel it’s time, then I’ll go,” he said. “As of now, I’m not ready to go yet.”

OK then.

−The Armchair Golfer

The Good People of Conover

SOMETHING MUST BE WRONG. I’m just not into the Ryder Cup. Not yet. I’m sure I will be when it starts on Friday.

One big reason is because I’m in Conover, North Carolina, for the next two days for events related to the Ensure Classic at Rock Barn, this week’s Champions Tour stop. I’ve come here each of the last three years, renewing acquaintances with some old old pros and usually meeting a few more of the younger ones. Many of them are approachable and friendly. Fred Funk and Phil Blackmar come to mind.

And the people here in Conover (and the greater Hickory area)—the volunteers, tour officials and golf club staff—are terrific. There may be a rude person among them, but I have yet to meet him or her. Instead, it’s something like, “Hi, I met you last year. Let me know if there’s anything you need.” That’s nice to hear.

It feels good to this armchair golfer to escape the home office and drive down the mountain into North Carolina where it’s sunny and 10 degrees warmer. The leaves are turning and the muggy days of August are long gone. Friends are preparing for their apple-butter making weekends. Autumn, as you might have guessed, is my favorite season.

Tomorrow will be fun. I’ll catch up with a dozen or so legends. I expect to see Doug Ford and congratulate him on being a World Golf Hall of Fame inductee. The Ryder Cup and Friday seem far away at the moment.

−The Armchair Golfer

Mark Calcavecchia: When 50 Is Younger Than 47

WHO LOOKS FORWARD TO turning 50? Those rookies on the Champions Tour, that’s who. Mark Calcavecchia is one of them. Calc couldn’t wait to jump off the PGA Tour and have his ticket punched for the Champions Tour, a transcontinental gravy train for golf’s graying set with shorter back swings and thicker waistlines. Mark fits right in.

“I started thinking about 50 when I was 47,” Calc told The Associated Press in May.

The context was that he was joking. He might have chuckled when he said it, but it sounds about right to me. Except for late bloomers like Kenny Perry and Fred Funk, I would think a lot of those mid-40 players who have been grinding on the PGA Tour for years dream about the Champions Tour most nights.

Calc could really play, too, into his late 40s. He was 49th in the OWGR in 2007 and won just shy of $3 million. Still, 28 years on the PGA Tour will put an ache in your step and a twitch in your putting stroke.

The Champions Tour has so much to offer a frisky 50-year-old: Shorter courses. Fifty-four hole events. Going against Frosty instead of Lefty.

After shooting 64 and 66, Calcavecchia is poised to get his first Champions Tour win at the 3M Championship in Minnesota. He’s tied with David Frost at 14 under. He left the course mad today because he bogeyed the last two holes. He still shot 66. Tomorrow might be his day. If not, it’s coming because for Calc and those other freshmen on the old guys circuit, 50 is younger than 47.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Image: Steve Newton/Flickr)

17 Long Years Between Wins for Larry Mize

2010 Montreal Championship Recap
Winner: Larry Mize
Score: 17 under, 199 (67, 68, 64)
Quote: “I’ll take a win anywhere.”
Fact: His middle name is “Hogan.”
Thought: Next win in 2027?

THE LAST TIME LARRY MIZE won on a professional tour he was 34, the same age as Tiger Woods. Mize shot 16 under at the 1993 Buick Open to beat Fuzzy Zoeller by a stroke. It was his second win of the season and his fourth PGA Tour title. One could reasonably expect more wins from Mize, a pretty good if not spectacular player who I remember as a putting and short-game specialist. But more victories didn’t materialize.

So when the 51-year-old Mize watched John Cook miss his 25-foot birdie putt yesterday on the final hole of the Montreal Championship, he was moved to tears. Seventeen years is a long time between wins. Between anything, really.

“Once it happened, it was hard to keep that emotion back,” Mize said. “You know, it’s hard to believe.”

I guess it would be.

Mize got the job done in the final round by firing an 8-under 64 that included seven birdies and an eagle to edge runner-up Cook by a shot.

The attendance at the inaugural Champions Tour event in Quebec was impressive, a total of 54,000 spectators with 22,000 on hand for the final round. Fred Couples, who finished in a five-way tie for fifth, was a definite fan favorite. U.S. Ryder Cup captain Corey Pavin continued his good play, finishing in a tie for third with Dan Forsman.

−The Armchair Golfer

Golf as Fountain of Youth

GOLF KEEPS YOU YOUNG, or at least younger. I’m convinced. Juli Inkster turned 50 on Thursday and shot a 71 in the opening round of the LPGA Championship. Still competing at a high level against players young enough to be her daughters, Juli is not the retiring kind—at least not yet. Said Juli, “I asked my kids, ‘Is 50 old?’ They say, ‘Well, yeah, but mom you don’t act 50.’” Current and former LPGA Tour players Natalie Gulbis, Morgan Pressel, Beth Daniel and Meg Mallon gave Juli an iPad for her birthday.

Fred Couples is also 50. Not only has Freddie lit up the Champions Tour, he led the Masters after 36 holes.

Tom Watson is 60. We all know about his golf exploits in the last year or so.

The oldest living major champion winner, Jack Fleck is 88 and still heads to the golf course nearly every day to hit balls and play a few or several holes.

Errie Ball, who played in his first British Open at age 15 in 1926, is 99 years young. The last I heard, Ball still gives lessons at the Willoughby Golf Club in Stuart, Florida. Errie was a good friend of Bobby Jones and is the last surviving player from the inaugural Masters. Ponder that.

So keep playing golf. It’s an elixir.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Image: Keith Allison/Flickr)

The Strange Disappearance of Bill Rogers

TODAY I WAS WATCHING highlights of the 1982 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, that Tom Watson caper where he stole Jack Nicklaus’s fifth Open title. Poor Jack. Tom had his number.

Anyway, I saw a name on a caddie bib flash across the screen: B. ROGERS. B. Rogers. Anybody remember Bill Rogers? You would have to be a certain age, or a student of golf history.

Bill Rogers played with Watson that Sunday at Pebble in 1982. In fact, Rogers led on the final day before falling into a tie for third. No one would have been shocked had he won, for Bill Rogers was the reigning British Open champion. He captured the title at Royal St. George’s at the age of 29. He went on to win four titles in 1981 and was awarded player of the year honors. And he was a member of the 1981 U.S. Ryder Cup team that trounced the Europeans 18½ to 9½, the most lopsided defeat in Cup history.

Everyone expected more big things from Rogers. From 1979 to 1982, he had three near misses at the U.S. Open: a second, a third and a fourth. He won the 1982 PGA Grand Slam of Golf. Then it was over. Beginning in 1983, he slowly vanished. After only making three cuts and winning a scant $5,000, 36-year-old Bill Rogers left the tour in 1988.

What happened?

Burnout preceded a loss of confidence. Rogers lost his desire. According to Lanny Wadkins, Rogers never liked the rigors of tour travel and missed his family back home in Texas. His rise in the golf world was steep and relatively fast. So was his fall.

“Starting in ’86,” Rogers told The Independent in 1993, “I hardly ever played a round of golf that I didn’t wish I was doing something else. That’s a miserable existence.”

Rogers took a job as director of golf at San Antonio Country Club. “Selling sweaters and giving lessons,” as The Independent called it, suited the former golf star. Rogers was content again. Since turning 50 in 2001, he has played in more than 50 events on the Champions Tour. He never regretted his decision to leave the tour, telling Art Stricklin, “I don’t think I was ever meant to be a lifer on the PGA Tour. I think I outsmarted the system by leaving when I did.”

−The Armchair Golfer

Calling in Sick to the Senior PGA Championship

THEY’RE PLAYING THE SENIOR PGA Championship this week near Denver and I was just noticing all the fellas who won’t be teeing it up for mostly health and injury reasons. At the risk of picking on the old guys (because I realize younger players also drop out each week at PGA Tour events), here’s the list of no-shows for the year’s first Champions Tour major:

Paul Azinger - flu
Hal Sutton – hip
Peter Jacobsen – illness
Jerry Pate – knees
Scott Hoch – wrist
Craig Stadler – medical reasons
Mark McCumber – back
Tom Pernice, Jr. – playing on PGA Tour this week

(Photo: Paul Azinger withdrew from Senior PGA / supergolfdude via Flickr)

So, Pernice is the only one playing elsewhere. Everyone else would need a note from their mother if they were skipping school. If you consider how much tournament golf those 50-something guys have played through the years, you can imagine the buildup of nagging aches, pains and injuries and why their bodies are wearing out. It’s not like the golf swing is a natural motion. It puts ridiculous stress on the back. Hands, wrists, shoulders, knees and hips are also vulnerable.

Years of travel, tossing around clubs and luggage, riding long hours in wheeled and winged vehicles, and sleeping on strange mattresses take a toll. Playing the tour looks glamorous, right? I guess it can be. It can also be drudgery—tough on bodies and relationships.

“Don’t ever get old,” muttered an aching Ben Hogan as he withdrew from the 1971 Houston Open, his final tour appearance. Fine, but that was before there was a Champions Tour with generous purses and a high-tech fitness trailer at every stop. Still, I can see Ben’s point.

−The Armchair Golfer