FORT WORTH – There is much irony in the observation that Colonial week brings back so many great memories.
The tournament always coincided with being paroled from behind bars of the schoolhouse. Gather your best buds and drink a whole lot of beer for four consecutive days.
We had lots of competition.
On Thursday, it was “Throwback Thursday,” so it seemed only fitting that I did what I used to do and have a few cocktails while writing about golf.
Just like the old days. This is quite a life I’ve got going. And also probably why I’m unemployable.
My mother always told her baby not to grow up to be a cowboy or a sportswriter, but it was all part of my carefully detailed blueprint. I remember well that meeting with the guidance counselor.
“Where do you see yourself in 20 years?” he asked me.
“Drinking Bloody Marys. What can I do that will allow me to work – well, you know what I mean — and drink Bloody Marys?”
“Have you ever thought about being a sportswriter?”
“Now that’s an idea,” I think I said, while staring into the ceiling dreaming of the possibilities. “I like sports, I can be clever, witty and demeaning all at the same time … and I can diagram a sentence.”
“Oh, you won’t have to worry about that, son.”
In reality, I should have had as a guidance counselor Charles Schwab, who, I’m left to assume, discovered the modern approach to retirement. That’s what the literature tells me anyway.
That guy has got life by the bowling balls because of all his counseling.
Well, whatever. Here I am, your correspondent at the Charles Schwab Challenge at the historic Marvin Leonard Country Club, better known as Colonial, where once a year they allow the other side of the tracks access to the consecrated golf grounds.
It was Charles Schwab we celebrated at Throwback Thursday. After all, nothing says “professional golf” quite like the nearby Log Cabin Village.
It wasn’t the Texas pioneer era we took the time-traveling DeLorean back to, however. No, the year was 1973 and the event was the Charles Schwab’s founding. In a master stroke of coincidence, this year’s tournament is Colonial’s 73rd.
This is a match made in heaven. And it really is. Colonial hit a home run with this sponsorship.
Tom Weiskopf cashed the winner’s check that year, 1973. Secretariat was in the midst of ensuring he would be dating the best mares on the block. Fort Worth, today the 13th largest city in the U.S., was then the 33rd.
In this field, former champion Keith Clearwater was among a handful or so who was alive in 1973.
While I was out scouting a throwback Priscilla Davis jersey, our man Jordan Spieth was going old-school, again showing life, scratching and clawing his way up Mr. Hogan’s Memorial Leaderboard.
It didn’t take the best detecting among the best detectives of the masters of prose to sniff out this storyline. To rejoicing they went.
“Jordan shot 5 under! Vintage Jordan Spieth! He is back! Hit tweet! ‘Corporate overlords, I have something to write and it’s only 12:15!’ Anybody hungry?”
I’m not one to cheer in the press box, it being bad form and all, but victory for the one-time Dallas Jesuit plebe, who spent what felt like only little more than a few weeks at UT, would be a rather large shot in the arm for the membership.
Spieth loves everything about Colonial — the track, the history, the heritage, the ghosts.
Victory would also be his second here and a mark of resurgence for the three-time majors winner since toppling from the highest point on golf mountain.
The key: the flat stick.
He got in his morning round of 65 with 22 putts. If not for a blasted double bogey on 18 (his ninth hole), Spieth might be leading after the first 18.
Instead, it’s Tony Finau, who was resting comfortably after a 6-under 64. Roger Sloan, a Canadian birth from Calgary who went to UT El Paso and now lives in Houston, also shot a 65.
J.J. Henry, playing on a sponsor’s exemption, toured Hogan’s Alley in a surprise 3-under 67. Colonial has never been friendly to the former TCU standout. In 17 appearances, Henry has missed the cut 10 times, including the previous four years. His average finish is 52nd, with a career-best of 22nd in 2009.
Spieth’s first round is a carryover from a show at the PGA Championship last week, his first top 10 of the season, and 29th two weeks ago at the Byron Nelson.
Spieth has that look of happiness, like a child learning to read.
“I know my game has been progressing,” Spieth said. “It’s one round, but all in all just playing kind of stress-free and being able to see my lines and get through the ball nicely on and around the greens was the goal.
“Score-wise, it’s not necessary for me to feel good. It’s more just I knew that once I started to get the club back out in front of me that the golf would start to be fun again, and it certainly is.”
This isn’t my first golf tournament, though. These things can turn south as quickly as marriage.
The afternoon groups had a devil of a time with the blustery conditions, which picked up significantly from the morning. The gusts were upwards of 30 mph.
Jonas Blixt (3 under) fared the best. He was one of only about 10 who shot even par or better in the afternoon. Those guys will tee off first on Friday.
Another, Francesco Molinari, seventh in the world rankings, the reigning British Open champion from Italy, had to feel pretty good at 1 over.
In my imaginary Colonial preview, I had Finau, 16th in the world, as one golfer to watch this week, and there was no reason to like him, other than the ol’ instinct. That, and he has a brother named Gipper. Who couldn’t like that?
Finau, 29, born under the covenant of Joseph Smith in Salt Lake City and a man of the temple, has made the cut in each of his three previous Colonial appearances with a best finish of 19th. Since a fifth at the Masters in April, Finau hasn’t been very good. He followed a missed cut at New Orleans with a 60th and 64th-place finishes at Wells Fargo and the PGA last week.
Finau has a different story.
He was headed to BYU until turning pro at 17 to play for the $2 million prize in the Ultimate Game, an individual match-play event in Las Vegas. A sponsor offered to put up the $50,000 entry fee for him and Gipper to play. Finau made the finals. After repaying off his entry fee, he took $100,000 and took off for the greener pastures of professional golf.
Since 2007, he has earned more than $14 million in his career.
A win here might lead to a celebration of fire-knife dancing, a Samoan ritual and his first love.
Finau had a good flat stick, too, dropping seven birdies and sustaining one bogey – on No. 5 – despite hitting only three fairways on the windy city day. Yet, he hit 16 greens.
Somebody try to analyze that data.
“I didn’t know that I only hit three fairways,” Finau said. “I hit a lot of greens. That’s why it was surprising. I still felt like I could hit most of the greens from wherever I was.”
He has also switched to a claw grip on his putter this week, something he decided to do after Sunday’s final round of the PGA Championship.
“I didn’t put together my best putting week. It’s something that I’ve kind of been thinking — it’s an itch I wanted to scratch I feel like for a little bit.”
From 25 feet in, he likes the feel.
“I don’t three-putt, really,” he said. “It’s rare that I ever three-putt.”
That’s a tempt of fate that makes me uncomfortable.
(Photo: PGA Tour)
