|
 |
 |   |
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Video Plus Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities 
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE | |
Notebook: Stealth Senior Mark McCumber makes his Senior tour debut this weekBy Gary Van Sickle
Many people think a lack of star power hurts the Senior tour, but the lack of
star power is actually an asset. There's a perception that if Tiger Woods isn't
in the field at a PGA Tour event, the tournament is second-rate. No one thinks
that of a Senior tour event if Hale Irwin doesn't play.
Although Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer still draw good-sized galleries, less glamorous players, like Bruce Fleisher, Tom Kite, Gil Morgan and Larry Nelson, are the strength of the Senior tour, and more of them are on the way. Rookies Bruce Lietzke and Bobby Wadkins have won this season. Don Pooley debuted two weeks ago. Fuzzy Zoeller turns 50 on Nov. 11, Tom Purtzer on Dec. 5. Next year Ben Crenshaw, Gary Koch and Wayne Levi become eligible, followed by Andy Bean, Jay Haas, Jerry Pate, Craig Stadler and D.A. Weibring in 2003. No one is likely to dominate in this competitive mix the way Irwin did from 1995 to 2000, when he won a Senior-tour-record 29 times, but if one player is likely to have more success than the others, he would be Mark McCumber, who'll make his Senior debut at this week's Vantage Championship at Tanglewood Park in Clemmons, N.C. McCumber was playing the best golf of his career in the mid-'90s when he was sidelined by injuries. Now that he's healthy, he could sneak up on the Seniors like a stealth bomber. "I understand the sports world is fickle," says McCumber, who has been working as a course designer as well as a golf commentator for Fox. "The fans forget about you three weeks later. Mark O'Meara was player of the year three years ago. Does his name ever come up now? It's been fun to be a dad, a husband and a course designer, but I'm looking forward to testing myself again." McCumber won 10 times on Tour, including the 1994 Tour Championship. His ailments began in '96, when he finished second in the Honda Classic and the British Open despite being unable to lift clubs out of his bag with his right arm because of a dislocated rotator cuff in his shoulder. He underwent surgery that August, two days after the PGA, passing up the Tour Championship so he'd be fully recovered the following spring -- he thought. "Little did I know the next four years would be a fiasco," he says. In January 1997 McCumber ruptured a disk in his neck during rehab. Then he learned he had a virus in his spinal cord. "For eight months every step I took sent an electrical shock up and down my spine," McCumber says. "Walking across a room exhausted me. I was convinced I would never play golf again. I wasn't sure I'd walk again." His condition slowly improved, to the point where he could swing a club, but he played in only 11 tournaments over the next three years. When recurring neck pain forced him to withdraw from the Buick Open last month, he went back to his doctor. The good news: His spinal cord was back to normal. The bad news: He had ruptured the same disk and needed a three-week rest. Today, except for numbness in his left hand and sensitivity in his legs, both hangovers from the virus, McCumber feels fine. "I hope I can elevate my game," he says. "It's a tough league. With all these good players, it won't be easy for a guy to reel off six or eight victories anymore. Winning three or four times will be a big deal. I want to be a contending player, but I'm not sure what my abilities are." Beginning this week, we will find out.
NCAA Versus
USGA
With great fanfare, the USGA announced on July 2 that in 2002 golfers will be able to enter professional qualifying tournaments (Q school) without losing their amateur status. Glossed over was the fact that should a college player take advantage of this generous-sounding opportunity to test the pro waters, he would be in violation of NCAA rules. "Our views on Q school haven't changed since 1990," says NCAA spokesperson Jane Jankowski. "If a student-athlete attempts to professionalize, he or she will lose his or her eligibility." Confused? Not as much as the nation's 11,000 college golfers and their coaches. "I wasn't expecting the NCAA to remain status quo," says Georgia Tech coach Bruce Heppler. "Our kids know the rules and will have to abide by them. I'm more worried about the kids we're trying to recruit. All this does is add to the confusion about what we can and cannot tell high school kids." USGA executive director David Fay says he discussed his organization's changes with the NCAA and anticipated that the NCAA also would revise its rules. Jankowski says Fay should not have assumed any such thing. "Just because the USGA made a change doesn't mean that the NCAA will too," she says. "The NCAA's membership committee has no proposals in the pipeline that will be specific to the USGA." Because there are now two sets of guidelines, Fay says his "greatest concern is that the athlete may be trapped in the NCAA." With more golfers leaving college early, Fay says the NCAA should be realistic and "seriously consider rewriting its amateur legislation." In April 2002 the NCAA may vote on a revision affirming the eligibility of a golfer who played professionally before college, provided that golfer abides by NCAA rules while a student-athlete. Under USGA rules, such a golfer loses his amateur status. The end result could be that a future U.S. Amateur champion might be ineligible to play in the NCAAs, while an NCAA champ might be ineligible for the U.S. Amateur. Says Linda Vollstedt, who recently retired after 21 years as women's coach at Arizona State, "This needs to be resolved before it gets out of hand." Sounds as if it already has. —Yi-Wyn Yen Issue date: September 17, 2001
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
