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Native son excited for Masters debut

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Can you name this man?

He was an All-America golfer at the University of Georgia. He played on the winning U.S. team in the 1991 Walker Cup with fellow amateurs Phil Mickelson, David Duval and Jay Sigel. OK, here's a hint: His last professional win was the 1993 Permian Basin Open. What, you didn't get The Golf Channel then? All right, last hint: He was born in Augusta, Ga., in 1968 and will play in his first Masters next week.

MAILBAG I was reading the column by Tom Hanson and he claimed Annika Sorenstam's 59 was more legit than Shigeki Maruyama's 58 at U.S. Open qualifying last year because it was played on a longer course. I find that very hard to believe. Your thoughts? Also, if you were involved in a Masters auction, would you give Greg Norman a serious look? —Mike (Mannix) O'Connor, Coronado, Calif. While Sorenstam's course may have been a tougher test of her ability than Maruyama's, they're equally legit. If Maruyama's course was so easy, how come there weren't four 58s that day? Al Geiberger's 59 was played under rules of lift, clean and place and Chip Beck's 59 was at a rinky-dink course. Does that lessen their impact or worthiness? No. As for Norman, Mannix, maybe you've been tooling around in your Barracuda too long. Of course he's worth a serious look ... especially if your office Masters pool pays second, third or fourth. How tough are PGA tournament courses? I normally play a course that has a slope of 123 (6,680 yards). This is obviously much easier than the pros would ever play, but how much tougher are their courses? How would someone like me (an 8 handicap) play at Pebble Beach, set up for the pros? Or Winged Foot? Would I break 90, or even 100? —Ken Evans, Winnipeg, Manitoba Add two shots, Ken, for living in snow country. I'd give you 93. Even if you have a great ball-striking day, the shots around the greens are going to get you. You've never played out of Open rough and certainly never chipped out of anything like that. I'd put a tour course's slope rating at around 150-155. Add at least a dozen to your usual score, Ken, for a tour course -- more for an Open but, trust me, you really don't want to play Winged Foot the day after a major unless you bring a weedwacker. You completely lost your credibility with your answer to the rangefinder question. If you are going to say, "Stick with the rules, period," then you should stick with the rules. You have a double standard on that one. —Dave, Nashville, Tenn. You are being pretty arbitrary about the Rules of Golf -- a GPS (rangefinder) is OK, but the ERC II ain't. I know it's your column, but when what you think is idiotic and capricious and slams Arnie, you need to rethink, then rethink again your position. —Patrick Finkbeiner, San Antonio You readers with this kill-the-messenger attitude are becoming tedious. I'm not the one who ruled the ERC II nonconforming. I'm not the famous golf legend affiliated with the USGA who told people to ignore the USGA's own rules and go ahead and cheat. I'm not the one being arbitrary about the rules -- that's the USGA's doing. The Callaway driver is nonconforming and can't be used to post a USGA handicap score. Rangefinders, however, are approved by the USGA for posting handicap scores but not for use in competition. If you've got a problem with that, write the USGA. The GPS rangefinders have proliferated so quickly, the USGA has essentially thrown up its hands. Its feeling is that the more scores you post, the more accurate your handicap. The problem with GPS systems on carts -- my club has them -- is outings or competitions at the course where carts are used. Unless the GPS is turned off, you're technically violating the rules. I'm in favor of using rangefinders once to check the yardage markers on a course, but not for the yardage of my shot. They're really fun at a mall, though. Did you know it's 67 yards from Sears to Lady FootLocker? I can't believe a major publication would allow such an awful manipulation of people's tragedies. Anyone who read about the Chamblees feels the deepest sympathy for the family. But to turn around and say this is why a ballplayer should be quiet and not ask for a raise? Did anybody bother to ask the family whether they wanted to be so shamelessly used? Regardless of what position you take on salaries, I think we can all agree that if an owner came out and used such a story to make a point about contract renegotiations, he would pilloried by everyone. That a publication does it is extremely distasteful. Maybe we can find a spin on this to use as a parable about buying brands of footware or soft drinks. For shame! —Steve Parsons, New York City Thanks, Steve, for completely missing the point.

Don't feel bad if Franklin Langham isn't on your radar screen. He's a solid player who finally arrived on the PGA Tour last year, even though he hasn't scored a victory yet. If you've got a good memory, you may recall that he was the guy who was on the verge of winning the 2000 Doral-Ryder Open until Jim Furyk blew by him with a final-nine 30. Last year was a breakthrough season for Langham, who quietly placed second three times and finished 26th on the money list with more than $1.6 million in earnings. That position earned him, at last, his first trip to the Masters, a big thrill for a youngster who grew up in Thomson, Ga., just about 30 miles west of Augusta off I-20.

A few days before Christmas, the mailman made it official and even managed to surprise Langham, who noticed a formal envelope with an Augusta postmark as he sorted the mail into piles -- what was for him, what was for his wife, Ashley. "I thought maybe it was a wedding invitation," Langham said. "I've got friends in Augusta and the envelope didn't have a name on it. Then I opened it and saw the formal invitation to the Masters. It was pretty thrilling. I'd been expecting it, but it wasn't like I'd been looking for it every day. People had been congratulating me all along last year, asking me how it felt, so it wasn't like a total surprise in one fell swoop. It was still nice to have it in writing, though."

Langham showed his wife the invitation, then called his best friend and his dad. "He had the grandkids at the time, so I took it up there to show him," Langham said of his father. "He wants a copy of it, of course. I'll probably frame it. I'm thrilled about playing there and now that I'm there, I want to go there and play well."

While Langham still has a slightly low profile, that's about to change. The media is sure to discover him next week as an Augusta native son (shades of 1987 Masters champ Larry Mize ) playing in the big-deal event, a tournament for which he worked as a volunteer scoreboard operator as a teenager (he used to be stationed at the par-3 16th hole). His last year on the job was 1986, for Jack Nicklaus' unforgettable victory, and Langham saw Nicklaus play the 15th and 18th holes in that final round. Masters scoreboard duty is a half-day shift so Langham usually worked in the morning and was able to watch in the afternoon. After Langham saw Nicklaus eagle the 15th, he and a friend sprinted to the 18th hole before the crowd swarmed up there.

"That was the greatest year I was there," Langham said. "The best shot I ever saw at 16: Seve Ballesteros was long and right in that bunker and the pin was cut close to the right side. Most guys blasted out and the ball rolled down the slope and they had 40-footers for par. Seve went in there with his putter and putted it out to three feet. He almost made it, it was an amazing shot. Since then, of course, they've put a lip in that bunker so you can't do that."

Langham won't be your typical Masters rookie. He played about five rounds at Augusta National while in high school and college, and has already got three more rounds in this year, including one the Wednesday before the Bay Hill Invitational. "I caught a couple good days at the end of February, but it doesn't help that much," he said. "It was in the low 60s, but the ball still wasn't traveling as far as it will in the tournament. The course isn't going to play anything like that in the tournament. But I am getting more familiar with the greens.

"It's a treat to play there, no question. There's something special about that place. That's another thing: I wanted to get there and look around so when I get there tournament week, it's not such a wow-here-I-am kind of thing. Even driving down Magnolia Lane a couple of times helps. One time I played with my dad and my brother and a member who invited us and, at the top of the clubhouse, they had a notebook full of letters that Bobby Jones had sent Eisenhower. I sat down and read a few. I could have sat there for an hour. There's a lot of memorabilia. It really does have a special atmosphere."

Langham, 32, turned pro in 1992. This is his fourth straight year of being exempt on the PGA Tour. This season he'll play in his first Masters and his first U.S. Open. In his only major appearance, he finished seventh in the 2000 PGA Championship. His initial Masters will definitely be a scrapbook experience. "I always wanted to play there sooner than this," he said, "but I'm just glad I'm finally getting the chance."

Chamblee picks TV over Masters party

When our favorite tour player, Brandel Chamblee, was asked by The Golf Channel to serve as a commentator on its nightly Masters telecast next week, he was torn. "I'd hate to miss my Masters party," he said.

Chamblee, like a lot of fans, turns Masters watching into an event. He's watched it every year since 1975 -- except for 1999, when he played the tournament, shared the first-round lead and eventually tied for 18th.

"I live for that week," Chamblee said. "If you're not playing in that tournament, everybody out here is watching almost every minute of it. The Ryder Cup is that way, too. Augusta has been there since the 1930s, all this history is built in, it just sucks you right in. It used to be I'd play golf with my buddies, come home and grill hamburgers, watch the Masters from 7 to 9 p.m. and catch the 15-minute highlight show later with Jim Nantz. Now the Masters is on all day. On the weekends, we golf early, and the big day is Sunday. Everybody comes to my house but it's different from the Super Bowl party, where you have kids running around. The kids are in the back for this because we're seriously watching golf. Last year, my buddy James, who's kind of sarcastic, asked me how to play a certain hole and I told him. He says, 'Well, you must not know that much about it or you'd be playing there, too.' I said, 'Well, I guess you're forgetting whose house you're in, whose hamburger you're eating and whose beer you're drinking.'"

Another party staple is the homemade salsa cooked up by Chamblee's wife, Karen. "She makes the best salsa and guacamole I've ever had," Brandel said. "I cook burgers on the grill and we have plenty of beer and Dr. Pepper. That's kind of a tossup, but I usually have to go with Dr. Pepper. Then we finish it off with vanilla ice cream on top of apple pie. Let me tell you, that is a pure day."

Though he hates having to cancel his party, Chamblee has decided to give the TV gig a try. "I'm thinking The Golf Channel has got to have the mack daddy of all high-tech big screens," he said. "I'll get to see every hole, not just the ones they're commentating on. Maybe I'll just bring all my friends with me to Orlando and do the party right."

Good luck, and remember: Don't mention the mob, body bags or bikini wax.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Gary Van Sickle is a regular contributor to the magazine's Golf Plus edition. Click here to send him a question or comment.

 

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