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DEL.ICIO.USUnfamiliar names make themselves known
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
So this is for the championship of the PGA Tour, and if so, where are Fred Couples, and John Daly, and Stewart Cink, and Brad Faxon, and Mike Weir? You know, the old established firms?
In their absence, there are names here you don’t expect to see in the Tour Championship. It’s not easy making this list. You develop your bank account in 2005 and you’re on the honor roll. So Phil Mickelson didn’t choose to accept his appointment, but Bart Bryant and eight other guys who had never enjoyed the hospitality of this spectacle before did. And I’ll tell you, the route for some has been a roller coaster ride.
Take Brandt Jobe, for instance. Jobe came off the golf assembly line at UCLA in 1988, but his game was still in incubation. He played the Canadian Tour. He played the Japan Tour for six years, played well and made a good living. Played well enough one year to get invited to the Masters, but it was 1999 before he finally made it home to stay. He was still up and down the exempt list until he came in 25th this year, and here he is at East Lake.
Then there are Ted Purdy, Lucas Glover, Olin Browne, Ben Crane, Sean O’Hair, and the man at the top of the leaderboard, Bryant. Now the Bryant name has been hanging around the PGA Tour for several years. Before Bart, there was his brother, Brad, more commonly known among the tour warriors as “Dr. Dirt.� Mainly, that referred to Brad’s choice of wearing apparel. He just wasn’t a clothes horse, and frankly didn’t give a darn how he rated with the sartorial eggheads.
Bart is the better player of the Bryants, and when he won the Memorial Tournament this year, he peaked. That is, unless the top of the leaderboard doesn’t change between now and Sunday. Bart’s career didn’t begin to gain momentum until he won the Texas Open last year at the age of 40. The school he came from, New Mexico State, isn’t known among the golfing elite — though it is Rich Beem’s alma mater — and he had done nothing to polish its reputation until all of a sudden.
Well, let’s see, that leaves us with Purdy, Crane, Glover, O’Hair and Browne. Crane is no stranger in these parts. He won his first tournament two years ago in the BellSouth Classic. Glover came out of Clemson swinging, and just last month blasted a shot out of the bunker in the Funai Classic that landed him here. That made him, I’m told, the first Tiger to win a PGA Tour tournament since Clarence Rose won The International.
Purdy is one of those names that popped up once and awhile on leaderboards, but never until the Byron Nelson this year had he ever threatened to win a tournament. He’s one of those who had to survive on Far Eastern cuisine awhile before he could make it back to the States. He was rookie of the year on the Asian Tour in 1997, and since that time his life has been a series of Q-schools and the Nationwide Tour, and suddenly here he is.
O’Hair is a rookie in the Tour Championship field. For the longest time it seemed he’d go through life more widely known for his wretched upbringing with his father than as a player. Then it came forth in the Byron Nelson that he had a game, and he underlined it when he won the John Deere. At his press conference this week, it was a relief that nobody asked a question about his life with father.
Olin Browne — well, it seems he has been around longer than dirt, but he’s only 46 and simply rediscovered his game. He has won on the tour, but it was a while ago, and it seemed he was moving into the twilight of his career until he won the Fall Finish, one of those auxiliaries the tour has established. And here he is, on the board at 2 under par.
Did I mention Billy Mayfair? Last year he was 140th on the tour, then he switched to a belly putter, got away from that “cut� putt stroke, and his game lives again. Oh, we shouldn’t forget that ol’ Billy won this thing once 10 years ago, a long shot but not as long as Jodie Mudd, who won it in 1990. Now there’s a name out of the archives, wherever he may be.
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By Ala. Jim
November 4, 2005 09:58 AM | Link to this
Furman, I’m like you. Who are these guys? I follow golf very close. Play, and subscribe to three golf magazines. I can truthfully say I’ve never heard of Bart Bryant Heard of Brad because of ” Mr. Dirt “. Know Glover only because he just won. Heard of Crane because of the slow play. Heard of O’Hair because of the father thing. Don’t know any of them because of their golf prowess. I guess this years big purses make them instant celebreties.