Golf: Clash of the Generations
The 2004 PGA Tour will continue to be a battleground between the Young Guns and the pop guns
Ben Curtis, barely 26 years old and playing in his
first major championship, won the British Open at Royal St. George's
this past July. Craig Stadler, barely 50 years old,
played that same week in the PGA Tour's B.C. Open and won it. Curtis and Stadler were separated by
nearly 3,500 miles and nearly 25 years, but their victories spoke volumes
about the nature of the game of golf. It's the story of the
generational ebb and flow, of the charge of the young and the hungry
against the determination of the old and the savvy. It's the story of
the Young Guns and the Pop Guns.
Tiger Woods has led the charge of the Young Guns into
the twenty-first century, though in truth he is an entity unto himself. At
28, Woods is not just a great player, he's the definition of the
standards of the game. The Young Guns who closely followed him onto the pro
golf stage, players like Curtis, Adam Scott, Chad Campbell and Charles
Howell III, all hit the ball long, putt like magic and carry themselves
with a steely edged demeanor and an abundance of faith in their abilities.
But Woods has also had an effect on the
tour's older players: the Pop Guns, or veterans, who are counting
down the years to a spot on the Champions Tour. Woods has raised the
standards so high that all other players must elevate their games to keep
up, especially if they want to take generous helpings of the enormous purse
structure that Woods's success has helped to build.
The 2003 PGA Tour season perfectly outlined the
abilities of the Young Guns and the Pop Guns. Neophyte Curtis won the
British Open in stunning fashion. Champions Tour rookie Stadler did
something that no player had ever done before: win an event on both the PGA
Tour and the Champions Tour at the age of 50. Twenty-three-year-old Adam
Scott won his first PGA Tour event and 43-year-old Kenny Perry played the
best golf of his life, winning three times.
Another old-timer, Peter Jacobsen, won the Greater
Hartford Open at the age of 49. Afterwards, he explained the phenomenon all
quite nicely: how, when it comes to Young Guns and Pop Guns, the game comes
down to the six inches between the ears.
"Tiger Woods is not the champion because
he's so gifted physically," Jacobsen says. "He is gifted
mentally and emotionally. He handles everything that is thrown at him. Now,
you can laugh at Craig Stadler and say that physical condition is not a
factor to him. It may not be a factor to him, but he knows what's
going on in here, and he has it here."
Here, indicates Jacobsen by pointing his finger, is
the head.
Young Guns carry around with them a spare lifestyle
dedicated toward improvement and winning. They may have a wife or
girlfriend, but they are unlikely to have children. There is little
domestic clutter to trip over on the way to a tournament win. A Pop Gun is
much more likely to have a family and interests outside the game. The
chances of distraction are greater; the chances of winning, longer.
But when it comes down to Sunday afternoons and the
chance to grab the trophy, the Young Guns and the Pop Guns both have it
between the ears, entertaining the golf world with the battle of the
generations. As the 2004 PGA Tour season begins, it's probable that
the battle will continue. Here are some of the most likely combatants.
Charles Howell III: Young
Gun
You would think that just by growing up in Augusta,
Georgia, Howell would have the pedigree to be a professional golfer of the
highest order. Born in the birthplace of the Masters tournament, Howell was
a natural. In 2000, he won the NCAA Championship as a junior at Oklahoma
State and was the Big 12 Player of the Year.
After turning professional in 2001, Howell broke
through to win the 2002 Michelob Championship at Kingsmill. The 24-year-old
had a steady 2003 season and finished second at the Nissan Open in Pacific
Palisades, California, losing a playoff to the very hot Mike Weir. Howell
also qualified for the U.S. squad in the Presidents Cup competition against
the International team in South Africa.
Howell is 2-iron thin and driver-strong. At 5-foot-11
and less than 160 pounds, he can pound the ball out there with the best of
them.
So what that he wears bad plaids and gives Jesper
Parnevik a run in the design disaster department. When you have the
strength, touch and desire of a Charles Howell, the only fashionable thing
is winning.
When Howell won in 2002, he was one of 18
first-time winners on the Tour, which included many young players.
He's acutely aware of how vulnerable the Young Guns are to the Pop
Guns. "You know, [in 2002] everyone was saying it was the year of the
young player and the first-time winners, and the older players are
done," says Howell. "And they are writing all of these guys
off, and now look what's happened. It's amazing."
Kenny Perry: Pop Gun
Kenny Perry had been a steady player over the
course of a PGA career that began in 1987. But no one would have accused
him of being a week-to-week contender. He won seven times, but he may be
better known for how he went about losing the PGA Championship playoff to
Mark Brooks in 1996. The gregarious Perry, playing in front of a home crowd
at the Valhalla Golf Club near Louisville, warmed up for the playoff by
chatting in the television booth.
He had good money-winning years in 2001 and 2002, but
no one, not even Perry, could have been prepared for what he did in 2003.
The 43-year-old had his career season and at one point was clearly the best
player in the world. Yes, Kenny Perry was playing better than Tiger Woods,
Davis Love III, Vijay Singh, Mike Weir and the whole darn lot. At 43 he was
on fire, playing better than he had at 23 or 33.
In one eight-tournament stretch
he won three times, finished third in the U.S. Open, eighth at the British
Open and tenth at the PGA Championship. Among his victories were the
Annika Sorenstam–energized Bank of America Colonial
Tournament and the Memorial Tournament, Jack Nicklaus's event that
annually has one of the strongest fields in the game. Speaking for himself,
and doubtless for all the Pop Guns, Perry says, "I think the level of
golf is just improving, Tiger's brought our level up a lot. My health
is good and I've always been able to hit it far enough. I don't
have any trouble with length and that's always been a big bonus for
me."
Enough length, it seems, to put the Young Guns in
their place.
Ben Curtis: Young Gun
When Ben Curtis held the Claret Jug on the 18th
green at Royal St. George's last July, he joined not only a legendary
group of champions who have held it before -- names like Old and Young
Tom Morris, Harry Vardon, Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and Jack
Nicklaus -- but a group of off-the-chart long shots that have won major
championships, such as Jack Fleck, Orville Moody, Paul Lawrie and John
Daly.
This 26-year-old from Ohio was playing in his first
major championship, having qualified the week before with a ninth-place
finish in the Western Open that got him up high enough in the world
rankings to earn a spot. But win the British Open? Win a major on his first
try? Did it have anything do to with the karma of being from Kent, Ohio,
and playing in the county of Kent, England?
"I know the names that are on the trophy, just
from watching it and growing up around the game," said Curtis after
his victory. "I'm in great company, and I feel like I
don't belong right now, but I knew in my mind that I did. Right now
many people are probably saying, well, he doesn't really belong
there, but I know I do, so that's all that matters."
His only previous professional victory was the 2002
Myrtle Beach event on the Hooters Tour. But there had to be something more
to him than minor league tours and Monday qualifying. Golfweek magazine
once ranked him No. 1 in its amateur poll while he was making All-America
honors at Kent State and he was part of the American team that won the
World Team Amateur in 2000.
"I never doubted myself. I was the number one
amateur when I turned pro, so I knew I had the game. It was just a matter
of time for me," says Curtis. "I figured once I got there, that
I had the game for this level. It was just a matter of time."
Craig Stadler: Pop Gun
The same week Curtis was winning the British Open
in extraordinary fashion, Craig Stadler was doing the same thing at the
B.C. Open in Endicott, New York. Stadler had turned 50 in June and the week
before the B.C. Open he won his first Champions Tour event, The Senior
Players Championship. Not having an exemption to play in the British Open,
he elected to take a spot in Endicott, where his son Kevin was playing. And
the Pop Gun won, shooting a final-round 63.
It was his first PGA Tour victory since the 1996
Nissan Open and it surprised him almost as much as it did the Young Guns he
was playing against. "I can still hit it out there pretty much with
everybody," says Stadler. "My problem has always been getting
the ball in the hole. I just don't make enough putts. That week I hit
them and the hole kept jumping in the way. The last round it jumped in the
way a whole lot."
Putting is one of the first things to deteriorate
as a player gets older. In Stadler's case, it started to deteriorate
when he was at the peak of his game, right after he won the 1982 Masters
and three other tournaments that year. Then he went eight years with only
one victory. In the '90s he won four times, but late in the decade he
was showing up less and less on the leaderboard.
With his Champions Tour eligibility looming,
Stadler worked harder on his short game. With typically droll humor,
Stadler placed the key to his success elsewhere. "Turn 50 and get a
good bottle of wine and you'll play better," he says.
Adam Scott: Young Gun
Everywhere Adam Scott goes in the game of golf,
Greg Norman is staring him in the face. From pictures on the walls of
locker rooms to names inscribed on trophies, Scott takes inspiration from
Norman's career and advice from the Great White Shark himself.
This 23-year-old Australian is taking a career path
that parallels Norman's rise to prominence. He's playing both
the European Tour and the PGA Tours. On the European Tour he is hardening
himself to difficult and often drastically changing playing conditions. On
the PGA Tour he is honing his competitive edge against the best players in
the world. The strategy is paying off. After winning three times in Europe
over two seasons, Scott won the Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston last
year, with one Tiger Woods in the field.
"It seems that everywhere we go in Europe,
Greg's name is on the champions list," says Scott.
"There's Greg's name on this one and there's
Greg's name on that one. I thought I'd kind of like to really
set that same presence over there that Greg did and have a lot of wins.
Greg means the world to me. I have modeled my golf game after him since I
was seven, eight years old."
It was Norman, along with famed golf coach Butch
Harmon and Scott's longtime coach, Tom Crow, who suggested a
"forget about America" strategy. "They said,
‘Let's go to Europe and get some good grounding over there, says Scott.
"That makes me appreciate a lot more what is over here and how good
it is."
Peter Jacobsen: Pop Gun
This Pop Gun is going to turn 50 in March and
become eligible for the Champions Tour. But expect him to play in several
PGA Tour events, especially after his stirring, if not to say shocking
victory in the Greater Hartford Open last July.
Jacobsen had not won since a hot streak at the
beginning of the 1995 season when he won at Pebble Beach and San Diego. But
by the following year his game had deteriorated to the point where, home in
Portland, Oregon, with a bad back, he had to give up his caddie, Mike
"Fluff" Cowan, to the beckoning of a superstar, Tiger Woods.
Jacobsen struggled to make it into the top 125 money winners each season,
though occasionally showed a flash of brilliance. But on the whole, he was
doing a better imitation of golfers (Arnold Palmer, Craig Stadler, and Fred
Couples are comedic parts of his exhibitions) than he was of being a PGA
Tour player.
Then he shot a 63 in the opening round at Hartford,
and the memory bank kicked in. For a man who spent more time working on his
events management company than he did playing competitive golf, this was
heady stuff, and he knew he had the head for it with 26 years of being a
PGA Tour pro. "I thought I had another win in me, I really
did," says Jacobsen. "I've been so motivated by Craig
Stadler's play, Kenny Perry's play, Tom Watson's play.
The key out here is not [to] limit yourself with either inexperience or
age. I don't think about age when I tee it up. I know Stadler
didn't. Ben Curtis didn't at the British Open. I didn't
think that coming down the stretch on Sunday."
Jacobsen thought what all Pop Guns think, that when
there's a chance to win, and they've done it before, they can
do it again.
Chad Campbell: Young
Gun
How is this for fanfare? Last June, Sports
Illustrated put Chad Campbell, a 29-year-old former University of Las Vegas
player, on the cover of its magazine. Chad the lad had yet to win a PGA
Tour event. In 2002 he had one third-place finish and one fourth. He had
won three Nationwide Tour events in 2001 that gave him a "battlefield
promotion" to the PGA Tour, where he notched a second-place result.
The way his game was maturing, many players saw him as the real deal and
were waiting for him to close on it. Sports Illustrated called him
"The Next Big Thing."
At the start of 2003 he had two more second-place
finishes, then a highly visible runner-up finish at the PGA Championship at
Oak Hill, where he was denied a chance at a playoff when Shaun Micheel hit
his approach to the 18th hole stiff for a birdie and the win.
Campbell failed to get his PGA Tour card at the
qualifying school five times. But he was a successful small-tour player,
winning 13 times on the Hooters Tour over four seasons. He was taking the
route best for him, learning something at every stage along the way. And
holding to an ample supply of his small-town upbringing in Andrews, Texas.
There is confidence in his game and humility in his demeanor, even after Sports
Illustrated turned the spotlight on him. Unlike many of the other
Young Guns, he didn't just pop onto the PGA Tour with a bag full of
expectations.
"There's guys that you know, kind of
came out and the first thing they get right on the PGA Tour, so they
don't know anything different," says Campbell. "They
don't know how you go to little towns and play not the best of
courses and you don't get everything for free like you do out here.
Everything is not just given to you."
Certainly victories aren't handed over for
free on the Tour, but expect Campbell to be there for the taking.
Fred Couples: Pop Gun
It's difficult to imagine that Fred Couples
is 44. He's still got a Young Gun face, even with gray leaking into
his mop of hair and bristling whiskers. He still can hit the ball like a
Young Gun. That cannon of a driver has never deserted him.
But certainly his back woes qualify him as a Pop Gun
and have for many years. Couples' back has been worse than most,
limiting his ability to practice. He has to save himself to play in what
have been a precious few tournaments from year to year, but the foundation
of all good play is on the range, where Couples has been noticeably absent
for years.
He managed to show up in Houston last season with
his game intact to win the Shell Houston Open, his first victory since
1998. So much was expected of Couples after he broke through to win the
1992 Masters after beginning the season with two other wins and two close
calls. While he had a decent career and is among the most popular players
on the PGA Tour, he never did anything that would land him in the legendary
category.
Couples' back has had a lot to do with that
and will have a lot to do with his longevity. He has a dilemma: either he
can practice regularly and play a lot of tournaments -- taking the
chance of a career-ending injury -- or cut back severely to extend his
career. The latter option, in all likelihood, means he would no longer be
competitive.
"I'm just going to push it until I
screw up," says Couples, who worked hard before Houston. "If I
can play like this another year or two where I feel like I can play, then
fine. But if I say I just want to take it easy and play a lot longer, play
poorly, it's kind of wearing on me. It used to be OK. After two or
three years it gets old."
So many other players, old and young,
asserted themselves in 2003. Aaron Baddeley, a 22-year-old Australian who
has twice won the Australian Open, lost in a playoff to Ernie Els at the
Sony Open in Honolulu. Ben Crane, a 27-year-old, won at Duluth, Georgia.
Hank Kuehne, the long-hitting Texas prodigy and 1998 U.S. Amateur champion,
showed up on leaderboards with increasing frequency.
The month of September was dominated by players older
than 40. Tommy Armour III -- who has carried around his
grandfather's name as something of a burden -- at age 43 set a PGA
Tour 72-hole record of 254, 26 under par. Kirk Triplett, Bob Tway and J. L.
Lewis, all in their 40s, won. Heck, Vijay Singh turned 40 early last year
and had a great season.
On the Saturday night before his victory in
Hartford, Peter Jacobsen checked his cell phone for messages and found one
from Craig Stadler, who had won the B.C. Open the week before. Stadler said
that if Jacobsen won, they would mostly likely be paired together at the
Mercedes Championships at Kapalua to start the 2004 season, since the
pairings go by order of the tournaments throughout the season. The two
veterans will be joined by a lot of other Pop Guns in the Mercedes, the
tournament of champions that is scheduled for this January. The Pop Guns
have proven that the Young Guns can't just move into town and clean
out the saloon.
Jeff Williams is a sportswriter for Newsday on
Long Island. 
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