A golfer's dream

As April approaches, a young man's thoughts turn to ... Hooters

What, you were expecting me to say Augusta? That would be correct, also. The NGA/Hooters Tour, a low-profile mini-tour whose only claim to fame is its sponsor, is back in action. The Augusta tie-in is a doubleheader. There's a Hooters restaurant on Washington Road in Augusta, fairly close to hallowed Augusta National Golf Club, and the Hooters Tour officially got its 2002 season under way in early March with a tournament in North Augusta. Elliot Gealy shot 15-under par and collected a $24,000 first-prize check.

MAILBAG What's up with Charles Barkley's comments about Augusta National? Is he lobbying for Al Sharpton's job or is he simply as dumb as his mouth is big? News flash for you, Charles: Augusta National is lengthening the course to change with the times. Tiger Woods is not the only guy who can blast the pill down the fairway 300-plus yards. Last I saw, John Daly is leading the tour in driving distance. And besides, if you knew anything about golf you would know that the cliché Drive for show, putt for dough is more than a cliché; it is a six-word phrase that captures the most important aspect of the game: how well you hit approaches, chips, pitches, flops and putts. —Tom Andrews, Hoboken, N.J. Barkley claims he made the comments to draw attention to other issues he wanted to bring up. If so, he succeeded brilliantly. Let's face it, when Jack Nicklaus was winning at Augusta in the '60s, Barkley was just a tyke. And apparently he's not a student of golf history, or Barkley would know that Augusta National did indeed change the course to make it more challenging then (translation: make it harder for Nicklaus to win). What's the lowdown on the Wilson ball-testing scandal? Why would you soak golf balls in salt and lubricant? Sounds very odd. If the company is guilty of rigging the tests then I hope it gets nailed. Well done, Spalding! —Paul Cross, Jakarta, Indonesia You soak golf balls in saltwater, Paul, to see which side floats to the surface. Then you mark that spot, put the ball back in the saltwater and see if the same spot floats back to the surface. If it does, the ball is unbalanced. It turns out, according to Wilson, that a surprising number of balls are still unbalanced and it does, indeed, affect a putt's roll if you carefully align the ball with the marked spot on the side at address. Notice that in Spalding's lawsuit, it contested the methods of the testing, not whether its golf balls are unbalanced. It sounds like Wilson is onto something, Paul. I have always liked Fred Couples, but I laughed at his proposal for a tour of former major winners. Hey, Freddie, it's a bitch getting old. Don't you think Joe Montana and John Elway would have loved a league for NFL players over 38 who have won a Super Bowl? Contrary to ratings and public opinion, I like the Senior tour. I like Allen Doyle and other club pros who have proven that the road to the PGA Tour in the '70s maybe had more to do with circumstance than skill. This despite the horrible restrictions placed on non-lifetime PGA money winners. Hey, Freddie, get off the couch and work or stay on the couch and watch. You can always play Augusta until you are 70. —Ray Solinski, Cincinnati I think a lot of golf viewers agree with you, Ray. On the other hand, if you're sitting in front of the tube on a Saturday afternoon and your choice is the Buy.com Tour telecast on the Golf Channel or the former major winners' tour with Couples and Greg Norman and Mark O'Meara and Curtis Strange , which one are you going to watch? And let's not call this proposal a golf tour. It's really just a television show, although I doubt if it will ever happen. The PGA Tour will do its best to squash it like a bug, just like it tried to squash Casey Martin . Why not have a ladies' Masters at Augusta? You can't tell me that wouldn't create some interest. With this probably being Greg Norman's last year playing the National, Australians could at least continue to have someone to cheer for in Karrie Webb. After getting up early for 20-odd years to see Greg come so painfully close, this would be some compensation. Karrie Webb, the first Australian to win the U.S. Masters -- why not? —Steve Lyle, Brisbane, Australia Steve, I know you're in Australia, but are you really that far removed from reality, mate? Augusta National has never been terribly female-friendly. There's about zero chance its members would be interested in giving up the club (which is open only October to May) for another week in-season, and certainly not for female golfers. But you're right about one thing: Any tournament played at Augusta National would create interest.

The Hooters Tour is where professional golfers go to dream. It's full of kids fresh out of college and guys like Rick Stimmel , who happens to live right up the road from me in Cranberry Township, Pa. I met him a few days before he loaded up his '91 Lexus to drive to Chattanooga for this week's Hooters event and begin another golfing odyssey. We had lunch at the local Panera's.

You're excused for not having heard of Stimmel. I hadn't either. He's 34 and never played college golf because he was busy competing on the wrestling team at Clarion State University. He's already had two pretty big golf moments: He was runner-up in the 1997 U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship, just missing an invitation to the Masters, and he qualified for the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, where he played well but predictably missed the cut. These are fairly impressive achievements for a guy who picked up the game up at 20, after his buddies roped him into playing, and within four years was competitive on the Pittsburgh area amateur scene. He's not big, but Stimmel is monster-long off the tee and normally has a pretty good short game.

Stimmel, who has played in five U.S. Amateurs but never advanced to match play, fondly recalls that Mid-Am. Well, fondly might not be the right word. "I won my first match 7 and 6, I won the next one 8 and 6, and then I beat Jerry Courville 6 and 5," Stimmel said. "I was just mowing through people."

In the semifinal, he ran into Ken Bakst , a 40-year-old amateur from the Northeast. "I was 2 up after 12 holes," Stimmel said. "I started thinking, Man, who am I going to play with in Augusta? What am I going to wear? I wonder what that little cabin upstairs is like? ... and he birdied three of the last six holes to beat me. I kind of lost interest in playing in '98 after that. My buddies would say, 'Do you want to go play at North Park [a beat-up local muni]?' I'd think, Gee, I could be in the Masters or I could go to North Park? 'Nah.'"

If you're going to qualify to play in one U.S. Open, it would be tough to top Pebble Beach. Especially the one in which Tiger Woods put on a record-setting display of golf. "I've played in a lot of good amateur tournaments, but nothing can compare to those conditions," Stimmel said. "I was out of my element. I called Bob Ford , the pro at Oakmont, and went over there to chip and putt for a week before the Open and -- nothing. It didn't help me a single bit. If you miss the fairway by one foot, you're in jungle. You might as well miss it by 20 yards. I played pretty decently the first day. I shot 76 with five three-putts and was tied for 48th. I shot 83 the second day -- I played the last five holes in 9-over par."

He enjoyed a romantic moment at Pebble Beach with his girlfriend, to whom he became engaged last weekend. She was among some 2,000 spectators standing along the left side of the par-3 fifth green. "She's 5-foot tall, 100 pounds, she couldn't see a thing," Stimmel said. "I smother-hook a 6-iron into the crowd, and somehow it hits her in the right shoulder and ricochets into the deep stuff near the green. What are the chances of that? She didn't know it was me until she walked over and saw it was a Precept ball. I walked up there and saw her and she said, 'Your ball is there, it hit me.' I said, 'What?' Then she pulled up her sleeve and showed me the mark. I slashed it out and made bogey." See, I told you it was romantic.

Stimmel is in the second year of a three-year plan to see how far he can get in competitive golf. He played nine Hooters events in 2000 after an adventure in the tour qualifying event, in which he shot 80 the opening round, then rallied with 67-69-72 and finished fourth. He played only one Hooters event last year, opting instead to try the state open circuit. The Iowa State Open, where he once finished second and won $10,000, is a good one even though, as he said, "There was corn as far as the eye could see, just pigs and corn." He also tried qualifying for Buy.com and PGA tour events. He missed by one stroke in Monday qualifying for four PGA Tour and one Buy.com tournaments. "That kind of wears on you," he said. "I'd almost rather miss by 10."

He didn't try the PGA Tour qualifying school last year. For one thing, it costs $4,000 and Stimmel was running low in the cash department. Also, he didn't feel as if his game was ready. So he split his offseason time between honing his skills and finding some sponsors. He did well enough at the latter to plan a full Hooters schedule this year, maybe 22 events, and hit some of the big state opens. The Hooters Tour, Stimmel said, is actually a pretty good place. There are pro-ams on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the pros invited to play in them (based on money-list standings) get $100 per day, which takes the edge off their weekly $650 entry fee. And there are distractions. "There's usually at least one Hooters girl per group, and every six holes there's a tent with beer and more Hooters girls," Stimmel said. Then comes the four-round tournament. It's all about staying ahead in the money column. Most Hooters players don't have caddies, they carry their own clubs. "We try to cut costs and stay in $40-a-night hotels," Stimmel said. "If you can get out of town for $1,000 or $1,100, you only have to finish about 35th to break even."

Other Hooters tidbits: Monday qualifiers are guaranteed at least 10 spots; purses are at least $105,000; the player who shoots the day's low round gets a $150 bonus, which is doubled if he's playing a Strata ball; the top 25 money-winners get free Stratas for the next year; and the tournament winner gets escorted back to the week's toughest hole after his victory, and if he can make a birdie he earns a $5,000 bonus -- that's wacky but kind of cool.

"It's not the tour where I want to be, but I don't have a choice," Stimmel said. "I don't want to be 40 and still playing mini-tours, but I don't want to work at a golf club, folding shirts all day long and getting Mrs. Smith's clubs out of the bag room. I'm a professional golfer, not a golf professional. If I had to work behind a desk 9 to 5, I couldn't do it."

So he's chasing his dream. If you see a guy driving a repainted silver '91 Lexus with a smile on his face this summer on the road between Savannah, Ga.; Gulfport, Miss.; Louisville, Ky.; Valrico, Fla.; Broken Arrow, Okla.; or places in between, give him a honk. He appreciates your support.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Gary Van Sickle writes for the magazine's Golf Plus section and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Click here to send him a question or comment.

 

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