Boom Boom Times on the Champions Tour
At the Senior PGA, Tom Lehman and a certain superstar showed why a tour needing a kick start has suddenly found new energy
The great Champions tour revival rolled on last week with the Senior PGA Championship being just another wildly successful week in a season that keeps coming up aces. While the PGA Tour's Colonial Invitational was dominated for three days by the likes of Bryce Molder, Jason Bohn and Brian Davis, the Senior PGA leader board was dotted with Hall of Famers (Tom Kite, Bernhard Langer, Nick Price), major champions (Mark O'Meara, Tom Lehman, Larry Mize) and the sport's most popular player over the last quarter century, Fred Couples, to say nothing of a handful of likable underdogs such as third-round co-leader Jay Don Blake, who has been reduced to Monday qualifying this year and who got teary on Saturday night recounting how much it meant to him to be in contention. Champions tour events often boast an excess of star power, but the show was all the more compelling because the Senior PGA was the Champions' first major of the season and it felt like a very big deal. "Majors are majors," said Lehman, the 1996 British Open champ. "I don't think that the Champions tour is any different. The courses are set up differently. The infrastructure is all there. NBC is here doing its thing. So it feels like a major."
Added ambience came by way of the boisterous gallery at Colorado Golf Club, which was reveling in the state's first big-time tournament since the International went kaput in 2006. The host venue also generated plenty of buzz. Set in the high plains of Parker, 20 miles southeast of Denver, the 7,490-yard, par-72 risk-reward course offered twisty fairways and wild green complexes that required imaginative play, especially as the course was buffeted off and on by strong gales. The layout, which included a pair of delightful, drivable par-4s, was designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, the latter of whom was in the field, leading to plenty of high-minded discussions on the driving range and in the pressroom about the course architecture. (On the PGA Tour the players don't discuss a course's subtleties, they simply bitch about not being able to birdie every hole.)
For all that there was to like about this Senior PGA the most compelling aspect was watching these crafty old warriors maneuver their way around a demanding course. The biggest knock on the Champions tour is that the toothless setups can lead to hit-and-giggle birdiefests, but the Senior PGA was proof that old-fashioned shotmaking is alive and well, at least among the over-50 set. Said Kite, "When you get on a golf course that's difficult like this and under conditions that are tough like this, you're going to see a lot of the name players come up [the leader board]. They get to be the name players because they're a little bit better than everybody else and they win more tournaments than everybody else and then get under tough conditions and they perform better."
Kite is a gritty Texan not known for his effusiveness, but he was almost giddy talking about the state of the Champions tour, noting that at age 60 he suddenly feels rejuvenated. "I think that the Champions tour is a great place to be right now," he said. "I'm very excited about what's going on. There's a lot of enthusiasm because we've got a lot of players who have popped out who are Hall of Famers or will be Hall of Famers. And you've got a lot of young guys on the PGA Tour that you can't put a face to a name a lot of times, and the same situation on the LPGA. Obviously when you have the top players who bring so much to the game like this, it makes you want to step up. You have to do something with your game, you're going to have to perform, because you know all those guys are really bringing it."
Couples has raised the bar for every other player while also being primarily responsible for spikes in TV ratings and tournament attendance. Having turned 50 last October, Couples made his Champions debut at this year's season opener in Hawaii; it turned into a thrilling duel with Tom Watson, who at 60 remains one of the game's most compelling figures. Couples lost at the wire to Watson and then tore off three consecutive victories, along the way shooting some truly outrageous scores. FREDDIE FEVER! was the headline of a recent cover story in one of the golf magazines, and even Couples's peers have caught the bug. "Certainly Freddie's always been loved in the game of golf," says O'Meara. "At first he was probably thinking, Oh, you know, do I really want to play? But he's played some phenomenal golf. Probably as good as he's played in his career."
Couples was in the thick of things at the Senior PGA, opening with rounds of 69 and 68 to take a one-stroke lead. On Saturday he played in a glittering final group alongside Lehman and Kite, the three of them having accounted for 39 PGA Tour victories, three fourths of the career Grand Slam and the captaincy of two Ryder Cup teams and a Presidents Cup squad. For decades we've watched them compete, and most golf fans can recite their long list of triumphs and heartbreaks.
Each player brought his familiar style to the round. Couples, the insouciant natural talent, was la-di-daing his way around the course until being waylaid by a four-putt on the 10th hole, reminding everyone of the careerlong bugaboo that has cost him so many tournaments. Kite, the consummate technician, never stopped grinding even as he labored to a homely 79. Lehman is an ultimate overachiever, but his career has in many ways been defined by all those U.S. Opens that got away in the 1990s. It looked like these old demons had resurfaced when he coughed up a two-stroke lead on the 17th hole with an exceedingly messy triple bogey. But at 18 Lehman ran in a big-breaking 40-footer for birdie and then almost tore his rotator cuff while celebrating. Asked to compare the intensity of the day to how he felt during all of those big-time tournaments he won and lost in the '90s, Lehman said, "It's no different now." He added, "This Champions tour is really, really interesting because there's a lot of camaraderie out here. But when you get down to the nitty-gritty, these guys are still competitive and they want to win. As a professional, having a chance to win is significant. That's what you play for. So whether it's this tour or the PGA Tour, that chance to win means a lot. And the intensity level is way up there. The focus is way up there. You're giving it all you got."
While Lehman fulfilled his media obligations, his longtime caddie, Andy Martinez, lingered behind the final hole, still buzzing from the events of the third round. "Wow, was that fun," Martinez said. "That was three decades of golf history walking down the fairway together. Those guys have done so many great things in golf, you watch them play and it all comes back." Then Martinez asked a rhetorical question that could double as the slogan for the Champions tour's renaissance: "How can you not love this?"
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"I'm excited about what's going on," said Kite. "There is a lot of enthusiasm."
Rock Solid
Steady if not spectacular, Tom Lehman rode four subpar rounds to his first solo win as a senior
If there are any fans out there still doubting the quality of golf or level of excitement on the Champions tour, the final round of the Senior PGA offered a rousing example of all that these old guys have to offer. Third-round leader Jay Don Blake, a mustachioed Cinderfella, was still leading the tournament until a dizzying sequence in the middle of his round during which he went bogey, eagle, double bogey, birdie, bogey, bogey. That last hiccup knocked Blake from the lead for good, ceding the stage to David Frost, who was still flying high after his course-record seven-under 65 the day before. Frost birdied three holes in a row beginning on the 15th to take the clubhouse lead at seven under, but he was caught down the stretch by some vintage Boom Boom. Fred Couples, the enigmatic tour savior, was just puttering along on Sunday until a spectacular eagle-eagle sequence on the back-to-back par-5s at 15 and 16.
But amid all these fireworks the steadiest golf was played by Tom Lehman, the 51-year-old grinder who was the only player in the field to shoot four under-par rounds. After seven consecutive pars Lehman birdied 15 and 16, then scrambled for par at the last to force a playoff with Couples and Frost. Then, hitting first on the first extra hole, he smashed a drive down the middle. His opponents both drove wildly and struggled just to finish the hole, while ol' Tom displayed his world-class iron play en route to a pressure-proof par that wrapped up the victory.
Afterward a breathless TV announcer declared that Lehman now owns two career majors, which is poppycock. The Senior PGA will never carry the weight of his 1996 British Open triumph, but what this win meant to Lehman was written all over his face on Sunday evening. "It feels wonderful," he said. "Anytime you get the best players together in one place to compete and you win, you've really accomplished something."
A late bloomer who didn't win his first PGA Tour event until he was 35, Lehman appears to be finally settling in during his second season on the Champions tour. In 2009 he teamed with Bernhard Langer to win the Legends of Golf but otherwise didn't have a big rookie campaign. This year Lehman already has five top five finishes and, flush with victory, he's starting to sound greedy. "I've never been the kind of person who sits back and goes, Wow, this has been great, look at all I've done," said the new Senior PGA champ. "I'm more the kind of person who says, You know, look what more I could do."
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Photograph by DARREN CARROLL
HIGH STYLE The fans flocked to a new scenic course to see Couples, who had already won three times in 2010.
TWO PHOTOS
Photographs by DARREN CARROLL
FINE GRIND While Lehman (top) mostly avoided trouble for four days, Frost rallied from a 12-shot deficit at the halfway point with a dazzling 65--67 on the weekend.
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Photograph by DARREN CARROLL
EAGLE EYE Couples, the second-round leader, sagged on the weekend until back-to-back eagles on the final nine.
