Fat on birdies, their joints warmed by the springtime sun, the old lions had themselves a day at the Mitsubishi Electric Classic.
They savaged TPC Sugarloaf, treating par with the kind of disdain men their age usually reserve for contemporary music. Forty-one in the 78-player field broke par, 21 of those taking it into the 60s. Even old pitchers thought about it — former Brave John Smoltz shooting 72 in the celebrity threesome dropped in the midst of this real tournament.
It was days like Saturday that Kenny Perry must have had in mind when earlier this year he vented his frustrations about the over-50 PGA Tour Champions’ place in the golf food chain.
A three-time senior major winner, the poster graybeard for competitive success in one’s late 40s, early 50s, Perry was about as pointed as he could get without working blue. He’s kind of proud of what happens out here on a tour that has treated him very well and takes slights against it personally.
Thus Perry told Golfweek magazine: “I don’t think anything on the Champions Tour means anything to anybody, to tell you the truth. The media, golf fans, they look at us as a freak show. We don’t get any publicity. None of our tournaments mean anything. I think it is sad because the golf out here is tremendous.”
Perry and his contemporaries provided a compelling, non-verbal argument concerning their skills Saturday. He was the day’s loudest advocate, his 8-under 64 tying the Champions tour record on this course. Perry left Sugarloaf on Friday ready to give his clubs to Goodwill, having lost a ball in the woods and another in the water on his closing hole on the way to a 72. He needed a high-powered scope to see the leader, Bob Tway, seven shots ahead of him.
He left Saturday one back of new leader Stephen Ames, whose 68 left him 9 under par.
“I guess that’s the beauty of golf,” Perry said.
Others in profusion followed his example. While Ames assumed the high ground on the leaderboard, look who moved into position just behind him for Sunday’s final round. The horde one shot back of Ames consisted of Perry, Atlanta’s Billy Andrade (66 on Saturday), Perry, Brandt Jobe (68), Kevin Sutherland (69) and Tway (71).
Moving into contention were a couple of other notables. John Daly shot the day’s second lowest round, 65, to move within three of Ames. Two back of the lead is 2014 Mitsubishi Electric champion Miguel Angel Jimenez, who shot 68 on Saturday.
In all there are 19 players within four shots of the lead. It could get gnarly Sunday.
One slightly shocking omission from that long list is this tour’s dominant figure, Bernhard Langer, whose 73 on Saturday broke his record streak of 36 consecutive sub-par rounds. Still, he was only five shots back of Ames.
In words, Perry obviously has been a fierce defender of a tour he has been part of through seven years and eight victories. As he said Saturday, explaining those earlier comments, “I feel like we should get more media attention. Look at all the Hall of Famers out here and all the great champions that are out here. Maybe I should just be thankful there’s a place for us continuing to play while we’re in our 50s. I should look at it that way rather than get mad and think we should get more respect than we get out here.”
In deed, Perry has not exactly been able to back it up lately. In the middle of his first winless Champions season last year, his play fell so low beneath his standards that he seriously contemplated retirement (no matter that one is supposed to retire to golf, not from golf).
So, he had a little talk with himself — some of it not very polite — and kicked his own backside back out to the practice range.
“I had to look at it this way: I was playing terrible because I was not putting the time in,” he said. “I had to make a decision. I’m not going to go out there and just play to play.”
It was a pride thing again. And the renewed golf ethic paid off in the lowest round Perry has shot in nearly a year.
In the lead is a player trying to win for the first time on the Champions tour. “Not anxious at all. I’m very comfortable right now in the situation,” Ames said.
Followed, for one, by an old hand who knows better than most the quality that will be required to win Sunday.
“If you back up, they’ll run over you out here,” Perry said.
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